Introduction

Within these pages you will find a complete Samba setup guide and a Samba FAQ for setting up a home or small office Linux /Windows network for filesharing.

Before we get started with the Samba setup guide, I would like to point a few very important details that will lay the groundwork for a successful Samba setup.

1) In coming to this website, it is assumed that you have a working TCP/IP network. This meaning that all pc's are on the same subnet, IP range, and that you are able to ping all your pc's by name and IP. If your network does not meet these conditions, there is no sense in proceeding further as Samba requires a properly configured TCP/IP network in order to function properly.

For help with Windows networking click here . This website has the most comprehensive Windows networking howto.....bar none.

For linux, due the varied amount of distro's available, it would be almost impossible to list every single distro/network setup here or anywhere for that matter!! However for a general overview of Linux networking click here.  Also do not forget about your distro's manuals or manpages.

If you are feeling adventurous and would like a more comprehensive look at TCP/IP network infrastructure this is the place here.

2) Again coming to this website it is further assumed that you have Samba installed and running on your pc. If not, you can look on your Distro CD's, or download the source code from www.samba.org , or if you are using Redhat or Mandrake, the lastest rpm's can be downloaded from www.rpmfind.net . Also there are some generic Samba (they are called PLD ..Polished Linux Distribution) rpm's if your distro supports the rpm format.

3) You have a basic knowledge of Linux, utilizing file editors, and Konqueror as we are going to setup Samba without using Swat or Webmin. For those who don't have a GUI installed on your Linux pc.......well you are going to have to rely on using good ole Emacs or other text editors.

4) You are logged on as root or have root priveleges on the Linux pc.

5) Finally all examples in this tutorial are based on the Mandrake (9.1) and Redhat (9.0) distributions. Other distro's may use different directories, file locations, commands etc., however the underlying and basic Samba functions are the same.

Ok now that we have all the fineprint out of the way, lets get Samba setup!

 Next: the smb.conf file