This page gathers information concerning the configuration of Samba on Unix hosts. Samba is operational on most Unix flavours. It helps share drives and printers with Windows hosts.

Those notes are for Debian / Ubuntu only.

Those notes are for Solaris / OpenSolaris only.

OS	Packages	Services	Default location for smb.conf
Debian	samba, smbclient	/etc/init.d/samba start
Solaris	installed by default		/etc/sfw/smb.conf
OpenSolaris / OpenIndiana	installed by default	svc:/network/samba:default svc:/network/winbind:default svc:/network/wins:default svc:/network/swat:default

Configuration file

Sample configuration file

[global]
        server string = Boureautic Samba Server
        security = SHARE
        log file = /var/samba/log/log.%m
        max log size = 50
        dns proxy = No
        read only = No
        hosts allow = 192.168.0., 127.

[homes]
        comment = Home Directories
        browseable = No


[sauvegardes]
        comment = Repertoires de sauvegardes sur Boureautic
        path = /mnt/win_e/sauvegardes
        guest ok = Yes

See where Samba reads its configuration file from

smbd -b | grep conf

Solaris 10:
smbd is located in /usr/sfw/bin.

Share a mount point without any password

To share a mount point with a host running Windows without any password:

[share]
...
guest ok = Yes
...
[global]
read only = No
security = SHARE

Of course, this is insecure !

User security settings

If user per-user security settings, you must first set passwords using smbpasswd:

smbpasswd -a -U <username>

smbpasswd is located in /usr/sfw/bin for Solaris 10.

Validate smb.conf

To test your smb.conf file, use testparm <smb.conf file>.

Solaris 10:
testparm is located in /usr/sfw/bin.

smbclient

Find out what shares are available on a given host:
```
smbclient -L hostname -I <IP address>
```

access a given share:

smbclient //hostsname/share -U username -I <IP address>

smbclient \\\\hostname\\sharename -U username

To detect an Apple Time Capsule:

smbclient --no-pass -L IPAddress
Domain=[WORKGROUP] OS=[Apple Base Station] Server=[CIFS 4.32]

On OpenIndiana:

smbutil view "//WORKGROUP;username@IPaddress"
Password:
Share        Type       Comment
-------------------------------
IPC$         IPC        
Data         disk       

2 shares listed from 2 available

The workgroup can be an IP address.

smbfs

To mount a share as a filesystem:

On Linux,

mount -t cifs [--verbose] -o user="WORKGROUP/Username%password",sec=ntlm //host/share /mnt/point

On OpenSolaris,

modload -p drv/nsmb
modload -p fs/smbfs
devfsadm -i nsmb
pfexec mount -f smbfs //server/share /mntpoint
Password:

To mount an Apple TimeCapsule for instance:

pfexec mount -F smbfs -o fileperms=0777,dirperms=0777 "//WORKGROUP;User:password@host/share" /mntpoint

The corresponding line can be added to /etc/vfstab to automate the mounting.

//WORKGROUP;User:password@host/share   -       /mntpoint        smbfs   -       no      fileperms=0777,dirperms=0777

and then to mount:

pfexec mount /mnt/timecapsule

SWAT

To disable SWAT on Debian:

disable localhost:901, in/etc/inetd.conf
then kill -1 inetd to restart.

To disable SWAT on OpenSolaris: stop the svc:/network/swat:default service :

svcadm disable svc:/network/swat:default

RPC

net rpc shutdown -I ipAddressOfWindowsPC -U username%password
net rpc shutdown -r : reboot the Windows machine

net rpc abortshutdown : abort shutdown of the Windows machine

See prefetch blog