Samba/Win2K help please

[kieren]

I am running mandrake 9.2 on my server, and wish to set up sharing on my fat32 partition. Nomatter what I do I can't seem to see it from my Win2K computers. Are there any tutorials or walkthroughs for this type of thing?

[fuzzylizard]

First, a few simple questions to clarify things:

 

1. You are running two separate computers; 1 computer running Mandrake and the 2nd computer running Windows 2000 Pro?

 

2. Do any of these computers have a firewall running?

 

Generally, the two biggest things that are going to stop SAMBA from working are firewalls running on any of the computers -- so turn them off -- and not having encrypted passwords checked as yes in the samba config file.

 

Provide a few more details of your setup and what you have and have not done and you will get a much better answer.

 

 

Note: If you are trying to create a samba share on a linux box that will be accessible to windows computers, there is no need to make it fat32, or any other supposedly windows friendly filesystem, as this has absolutely no bearring on whether the windows computers will be able to access the share.

[kieren]

I have two computers here, both dual booting Linux Mandrake 9.2 and Win2K Pro. My server stays on pretty much 24/7, and I leave it in Windows to retain functionality while I play around with Mandrake on my desktop machine. Ultimately though, I would like to get my server funcional as a file and print server with LInux, and possibly even replace my Win2K desktop with Linux if I can be sure to retain full funcionality.

 

Both machines when in Windows are running Zonealarm Pro. I can access the Windows shares from Linux fine, even with the firewall running. Does this alter anything? When in Linux my desktop is running the default Linux firewall. I do have a /var/www partition though, and when I type the IP address of the desktop computer into my server's browser I get an index page from Linux. Does this have any bearing on the firewall issue? I don't mind turning off my firewalls for testing purposes, but taking them off semi-permenantly to allow file sharing is not acceptable, given that I have a 24/7 connection with a static IP.

 

I haven't tried the encrypted passwords option, thanks for that, I'll investigate tomorrw night :D

 

Thanks for the hint about not having to share a WIndows compatible partition, that makes things somewhat less complicated.

[fuzzylizard]

Having a firewall on a Windows machine will interfere with filesharing, so you are going to have to find a way around that. I know that with my setup, if I leave zonealarm running on my notebook (winXP) I can not connect to any of my computers. The firewall simply does not allow it. So far, I have not found a way around it.

 

You say that you have a static IP address. How are you sharing your internet connection? Through a router or through a computer? If it is through a computer, which one and what is it running?

 

I would strongly suggest setting up a proper firewall/router using either an old computer or one of those little boxes that Linksys or DLink sell. This will make life a lot easier and remove the need to be running firewalls on the machine inside the firewall/router. (This may be the only way to get things to work)

 

As for why the other services work, well, All firewalls are setup to allow port 80 (http) traffic through and apparently your linux firewall is setup to allow for samba filesharing (although, from other posts, this seems to be a bit odd). Allowing this kind of traffic through is normal. Allowing people access to your computer in order to share files, this is not allow on most firewalls. And generally is not something you ever want to allow because it introduces a huge hole in your security. Once you allow one computer through for filesharing, you allow all computers through.