samba problems

[sawer]

I'm still having problems getting samba to work. In swat I only see HOME STATUS VIEW and PASSWORD. Everything I've read shows golbals shares and printers. What file am I missing. I somtimes get my linux box to show on my windows box, I can loose it by just going back to linux and then back to windows. I'm using a kvm switch and router between the 2 boxes. I'm about ready to say the heck with linux and buy the new mac and get back to money paying work.

[filp]

Have you been through the doco on the www.samba.org site, it's really very good. Other things you can look for is trying to ping each other, just to make sure that lower level networking is okay and in windows do a start/search/A computer and type the name of the Linux box under samba. Lastly I'd say it's really worth while learning the /etc/samba/smb.conf file it's very well laid out and documented. I've found swat to be a bit confusing.

Seeya,
Filp.

[cowanrl]

If you have a router between your Linux and Windows box, you will have trouble seeing your Linux box from Windows even if Samba is working perfectly.
Windows and Samba use broadcasts to resolve computer NetBIOS names to IP addresses and browse each other's shares. A router won't pass the broadcasts. You would never be able to browse your Linux box running Samba in Network Neighborhood in Windows.
They would be able to communicate between them somewhat if you used IP addresses but I think you'd still have problems.

This isn't something that's only between Windows and Samba. The same thing would happen if you had 2 Windows computers with a router between them.

One way to get around that is to use your Samba server as a WINS server. You would add the line:

wins support = yes

to your smb.conf file.

Then on your Windows computer, set it up to use WINS and put in the IP address of your Linux computer.

You can also use lmhost files on the Linux and Windows computers but I think WINS is an easier solution since Samba supports it.

[cowanrl]

You said you couldn't see the Global, Shares and Printers section in SWAT. Have you been able to fix that? Without being able to see them, you won't be able to use SWAT to configure Samba. You'll have to edit the smb.conf file manually If you want to use SWAT, you may have to re-install it.

How about providing the following information:

What Linux distribution are you using?

Post a copy of your smb.conf file.

What is the IP address, netmask and gateway setting on your Windows and Linux computers?

You said you have a router between the Linux and Windows computers. Is it really a router or is it a switch or hub? If it is an actual router, what is the IP address and netmask on each port of the router?

Can you ping your Windows computer from the Linux computer and vice-versa?

When you try to access your Samba shares from your Windows machine, what's the exact error message you get?