Networking Linux Computers

[Baryon]

I have a Local Area Network of four computers. Two of the computers often run Windows, so I set up Samba so that when one of the other computers was running Linux, it could still connect to them and share files. This works OK.

The problem comes when trying to connect two Linux computers - I just can't do it. I want them to be able to share files and printers (ie I would like one of them to be able to send print jobs to a printer connected to the other Linux PC). I have had this problem for almost a year, but I haven't got around to asking in the forums yet.

Please help!

Typical specs:
One computer running Mandrake Linux 9.1 and another running Gentoo Linux 2004. This is a wired LAN, through a standard ethernet connection.

[ph34r]

You are already using Samba for the windows side, why not use it for the linux side as well?

[Icarus]

I have a server running Samba that I share docs and a printer with Linux and Windows machines.

Are you using smbmount to mount the remote share?

The CUPS setup for Archlinux covers setting up printers very well
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CUPS%20setup

[Baryon]

On Mandrake, I can open Konqueror, browse to 'smb:/' and then my Windows shares are there in sub-folders. But my Linux shares aren't. I know I should be able to use Samba for both, but I do not know how to do it for Linux.

[Baryon]

Thanks for the tutorial link; I will try it later.

[Icarus]

You need to have both smbd and nmbd running on the Linux Samba server (and a correctly configured /etc/samba/smb.conf ;))

We are talking about exporting Linux shares onto the network, right?

[Baryon]

I don't know anything about 'smbd' and 'nmbd' and I am not quite sure what you mean by 'export'. I just want one computer running Linux to be able to share files with another computer running Linux, and for the one computer to be able to send print jobs to the other.

I have been using Linux for a year but I'm still a newbie, effectively, and there are lots of things I don't understand. Sorry!

As I say, I will try that ArchLinux tutorial later on.

[Icarus]

export a directory means send it elsewhere. When you 'share' a folder/file you are exporting it.

smbd and nmbd are the services that need to be running for Samba. I use Samba for Linux to Windows and Linux to Linux

To use NFS to share folders (this works for Unix, and MS has tools to read NFS shares for free now)
edit the /etc/exports file to include what directorys you wish to share and their permissions. Mine looks like this. Directory name then who can access it

$ more /etc/exports
/home/icarus 10.1.1.3(rw,sync)
/home/icarus 10.1.1.4(rw,sync)
/test 10.1.0.0/16(rw,sync)

Then run "# /usr/sbin/exportfs -a"
Make sure you have portmap, nfslock and nfs services running.
I prefer Samba though over NFS for it's performance

[hard candy]

This is something I read about in the Linux Journal, sounds like a good app for mounting shares and replacing Network Neighborhood.
http://smb4k.berlios.de/

http://smb4k.berlios.de/shots/0.4.0/Smb4K-0.4.0-2.png

And the LJ article:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7526

[Baryon]

Thank you for your help so far, but I think I need to explain again: I can already use Samba, and I use this for file-sharing between Linux and Windows. I do not use the 'smbmount' command - I don't know how to use that. I just use Konqueror at the 'smb:/' location.

And I want to continue using Samba to share between two Linux computers - something that I have not been able to achieve yet.

Smb4k is good, but I don't really need it. I just need to know how to file-share with Samba Linux-to-Linux (or to know how to find out).


By the way: something odd happened that you may be able to help me with. Since I couldn't share a file from Linux to Linux, I transferred the file I wanted to share to Windows...

like this:
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows
cp file.sxw /mnt/windows

...And then I tried to transfer this file from Windows to Linux in the usual way. So I opened Konqueror and found the file in the Windows drive, which I attempted to transfer, but the Konqueror copy file process reported that it had 'Stalled', so I couldn't open it. This only happened with that particular file.

Any ideas on what the problem could be there? Corruption during transfer, perhaps?

Thanks again.