2 Paul Blackman, ictinus@lake.canberra.edu.au
5 This is the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document for Samba, the
6 free and very popular SMB server product. An SMB server allows file
7 and printer connections from clients such as Windows, OS/2, Linux and
8 others. Current to version 1.9.16. Please send any corrections to the
10 ______________________________________________________________________
14 1. General Information
18 1.2. What is the current version of Samba?
20 1.3. Where can I get it?
22 1.4. What do the version numbers mean?
24 1.5. What platforms are supported?
26 1.6. How can I find out more about Samba?
28 1.7. Something's gone wrong - what should I do?
30 1.8. Pizza supply details
32 2. Compiling and installing Samba on a Unix host
34 2.1. I can't see the Samba server in any browse lists!
36 2.2. Some files that I KNOW are on the server doesn't show up when
37 I view the files from my client!
39 2.3. Some files on the server show up with really wierd filenames
40 when I view the files from my client!
42 2.4. My client reports "cannot locate specified computer" or
45 2.5. My client reports "cannot locate specified share name" or
48 2.6. My client reports "cannot find domain controller", "cannot log
49 on to the network" or similar
51 2.7. Printing doesn't work :-(
53 2.8. My programs install on the server OK, but refuse to work
56 2.9. My "server string" doesn't seem to be recognised
58 2.10. My client reports "This server is not configured to list
61 2.11. Log message "you appear to have a trapdoor uid system"
63 3. Common client questions
65 3.1. Are any Macintosh clients for Samba
67 3.2. "Session request failed (131,130)" error
69 3.3. How do I synchronise my PC's clock with my Samba server?
71 3.4. Problems with WinDD, NTrigue, WinCenterPro etc
73 3.5. Problem with printers under NT
75 3.6. Why are my file's timestamps off by an hour, or by a few
78 3.7. How do I set the printer driver name correctly?
80 4. Specific client application problems
82 4.1. MS Office Setup reports "Cannot change properties of
86 ______________________________________________________________________
88 1. General Information
90 All about Samba - what it is, how to get it, related sources of
91 information, how to understand the version numbering scheme, pizza
96 Samba is a suite of programs which work together to allow clients to
97 access to a server's filespace and printers via the SMB (Server
98 Message Block) protocol. Initially written for Unix, Samba now also
99 runs on Netware, OS/2 and VMS.
101 In practice, this means that you can redirect disks and printers to
102 Unix disks and printers from Lan Manager clients, Windows for
103 Workgroups 3.11 clients, Windows NT clients, Linux clients and OS/2
104 clients. There is also a generic Unix client program supplied as part
105 of the suite which allows Unix users to use an ftp-like interface to
106 access filespace and printers on any other SMB servers. This gives the
107 capability for these operating systems to behave much like a LAN
108 Server or Windows NT Server machine, only with added functionality and
109 flexibility designed to make life easier for administrators.
111 The components of the suite are (in summary):
113 o smbd, the SMB server. This handles actual connections from clients,
114 doing all the file, permission and username work
116 o nmbd, the Netbios name server, which helps clients locate servers,
117 doing the browsing work and managing domains as this capability is
118 being built into Samba
120 o smbclient, the Unix-hosted client program
122 o smbrun, a little 'glue' program to help the server run external
125 o testprns, a program to test server access to printers
127 o testparms, a program to test the Samba configuration file for
130 o smb.conf, the Samba configuration file
132 o smbprint, a sample script to allow a Unix host to use smbclient to
133 print to an SMB server
135 o documentation! DON'T neglect to read it - you will save a great
138 The suite is supplied with full source (of course!) and is GPLed.
140 The primary creator of the Samba suite is Andrew Tridgell. Later
141 versions incorporate much effort by many net.helpers. The man pages
142 and this FAQ were originally written by Karl Auer.
144 1.2. What is the current version of Samba?
146 At time of writing, the current version was 1.9.16. If you want to be
147 sure check the bottom of the change-log file.
148 <ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/samba/alpha/change-log>
150 For more information see ``What do the version numbers mean?''
152 1.3. Where can I get it?
154 The Samba suite is available via anonymous ftp from samba.anu.edu.au.
155 The latest and greatest versions of the suite are in the directory:
159 Development (read "alpha") versions, which are NOT necessarily stable
160 and which do NOT necessarily have accurate documentation, are
161 available in the directory:
165 Note that binaries are NOT included in any of the above. Samba is
166 distributed ONLY in source form, though binaries may be available from
167 other sites. Recent versions of some Linux distributions, for example,
168 do contain Samba binaries for that platform.
170 1.4. What do the version numbers mean?
172 It is not recommended that you run a version of Samba with the word
173 "alpha" in its name unless you know what you are doing and are willing
174 to do some debugging. Many, many people just get the latest
175 recommended stable release version and are happy. If you are brave, by
176 all means take the plunge and help with the testing and development -
177 but don't install it on your departmental server. Samba is typically
178 very stable and safe, and this is mostly due to the policy of many
181 How the scheme works:
183 1) when major changes are made the version number is increased. For
184 example, the transition from 1.9.15 to 1.9.16. However, this version
185 number will not appear immediately and people should continue to use
186 1.9.15 for production systems (see next point.)
188 2) just after major changes are made the software is considered
189 unstable, and a series of alpha releases are distributed, for example
190 1.9.16alpha1. These are for testing by those who know what they are
191 doing. The "alpha" in the filename will hopefully scare off those who
192 are just looking for the latest version to install.
194 3) when Andrew thinks that the alphas have stabilised to the point
195 where he would recommend new users install it, he renames it to the
196 same version number without the alpha, for example 1.9.16.
198 4) inevitably bugs are found in the "stable" releases and minor patch
199 levels are released which give us the pXX series, for example
202 So the progression goes:
204 1.9.15p7 (production) 1.9.15p8 (production) 1.9.16alpha1
205 (test sites only) : 1.9.16alpha20 (test sites only) 1.9.16
206 (production) 1.9.16p1 (production)
208 The above system means that whenever someone looks at the samba ftp
209 site they will be able to grab the highest numbered release without an
210 alpha in the name and be sure of getting the current recommended
213 1.5. What platforms are supported?
215 Many different platforms have run Samba successfully. The platforms
216 most widely used and thus best tested are Linux and SunOS.
218 At time of writing, the Makefile claimed support for:
220 * SunOS * Linux with shadow passwords * Linux without shadow passwords
221 * SOLARIS * SOLARIS 2.2 and above (aka SunOS 5) * SVR4 * ULTRIX * OSF1
222 (alpha only) * OSF1 with NIS and Fast Crypt (alpha only) * OSF1 V2.0
223 Enhanced Security (alpha only) * AIX * BSDI * NetBSD * NetBSD 1.0 *
224 SEQUENT * HP-UX * SGI * SGI IRIX 4.x.x * SGI IRIX 5.x.x * FreeBSD *
225 NeXT 3.2 and above * NeXT OS 2.x * NeXT OS 3.0 * ISC SVR3V4 (POSIX
226 mode) * ISC SVR3V4 (iBCS2 mode) * A/UX 3.0 * SCO with shadow
227 passwords. * SCO with shadow passwords, without YP. * SCO with TCB
228 passwords * SCO 3.2v2 (ODT 1.1) with TCP passwords * intergraph * DGUX
229 * Apollo Domain/OS sr10.3 (BSD4.3)
231 1.6. How can I find out more about Samba?
233 There are two mailing lists devoted to discussion of Samba-related
234 matters. There is also the newsgroup, comp.protocols.smb, which has a
235 great deal of discussion on Samba. There is also a WWW site 'SAMBA Web
236 Pages' at http://samba.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/samba.html, under
237 which there is a comprehensive survey of Samba users. Another useful
238 resource is the hypertext archive of the Samba mailing list.
240 Send email to listproc@samba.anu.edu.au. Make sure the subject line is
241 blank, and include the following two lines in the body of the message:
243 subscribe samba Firstname Lastname subscribe samba-announce Firstname
246 Obviously you should substitute YOUR first name for "Firstname" and
247 YOUR last name for "Lastname"! Try not to send any signature stuff, it
248 sometimes confuses the list processor.
250 The samba list is a digest list - every eight hours or so it
251 regurgitates a single message containing all the messages that have
252 been received by the list since the last time and sends a copy of this
253 message to all subscribers.
255 If you stop being interested in Samba, please send another email to
256 listproc@samba.anu.edu.au. Make sure the subject line is blank, and
257 include the following two lines in the body of the message:
259 unsubscribe samba unsubscribe samba-announce
261 The From: line in your message MUST be the same address you used when
264 1.7. Something's gone wrong - what should I do?
266 # *** IMPORTANT! *** # DO NOT post messages on mailing lists or in
267 newsgroups until you have carried out the first three steps given
270 Firstly, see if there are any likely looking entries in this FAQ! If
271 you have just installed Samba, have you run through the checklist in
272 DIAGNOSIS.txt? It can save you a lot of time and effort.
274 Secondly, read the man pages for smbd, nmbd and smb.conf, looking for
275 topics that relate to what you are trying to do.
277 Thirdly, if there is no obvious solution to hand, try to get a look at
278 the log files for smbd and/or nmbd for the period during which you
279 were having problems. You may need to reconfigure the servers to
280 provide more extensive debugging information - usually level 2 or
281 level 3 provide ample debugging info. Inspect these logs closely,
282 looking particularly for the string "Error:".
284 Fourthly, if you still haven't got anywhere, ask the mailing list or
285 newsgroup. In general nobody minds answering questions provided you
286 have followed the preceding steps. It might be a good idea to scan the
287 archives of the mailing list, which are available through the Samba
288 web site described in the previous section.
290 If you successfully solve a problem, please mail the FAQ maintainer a
291 succinct description of the symptom, the problem and the solution, so
292 I can incorporate it in the next version.
294 If you make changes to the source code, _please_ submit these patches
295 so that everyone else gets the benefit of your work. This is one of
296 the most important aspects to the maintainence of Samba. Send all
297 patches to samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au, not Andrew Tridgell or any
298 other individual and not the samba team mailing list.
300 1.8. Pizza supply details
302 Those who have registered in the Samba survey as "Pizza Factory" will
303 already know this, but the rest may need some help. Andrew doesn't ask
304 for payment, but he does appreciate it when people give him pizza.
305 This calls for a little organisation when the pizza donor is twenty
306 thousand kilometres away, but it has been done.
308 Method 1: Ring up your local branch of an international pizza chain
309 and see if they honour their vouchers internationally. Pizza Hut do,
310 which is how the entire Canberra Linux Users Group got to eat pizza
311 one night, courtesy of someone in the US
313 Method 2: Ring up a local pizza shop in Canberra and quote a credit
314 card number for a certain amount, and tell them that Andrew will be
315 collecting it (don't forget to tell him.) One kind soul from Germany
318 Method 3: Purchase a pizza voucher from your local pizza shop that has
319 no international affiliations and send it to Andrew. It is completely
320 useless but he can hang it on the wall next to the one he already has
323 Method 4: Air freight him a pizza with your favourite regional
324 flavours. It will probably get stuck in customs or torn apart by
325 hungry sniffer dogs but it will have been a noble gesture.
327 2. Compiling and installing Samba on a Unix host
329 2.1. I can't see the Samba server in any browse lists!
331 *** Until the FAQ can be updated, please check the file: ***
332 ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/samba/BROWSING.txt *** for more information
335 If your GUI client does not permit you to select non-browsable
336 servers, you may need to do so on the command line. For example, under
337 Lan Manager you might connect to the above service as disk drive M:
342 The details of how to do this and the specific syntax varies from
343 client to client - check your client's documentation.
345 2.2. view the files from my client! Some files that I KNOW are on
346 the server doesn't show up when I
348 2.3. I view the files from my client! Some files on the server show
349 up with really wierd filenames when
351 If you check what files are not showing up, you will note that they
352 are files which contain upper case letters or which are otherwise not
353 DOS-compatible (ie, they are not legal DOS filenames for some reason).
355 The Samba server can be configured either to ignore such files
356 completely, or to present them to the client in "mangled" form. If you
357 are not seeing the files at all, the Samba server has most likely been
358 configured to ignore them. Consult the man page smb.conf(5) for
359 details of how to change this - the parameter you need to set is
360 "mangled names = yes".
362 2.4. My client reports "cannot locate specified computer" or similar
364 This indicates one of three things: You supplied an incorrect server
365 name, the underlying TCP/IP layer is not working correctly, or the
366 name you specified cannot be resolved.
368 After carefully checking that the name you typed is the name you
369 should have typed, try doing things like pinging a host or telnetting
370 to somewhere on your network to see if TCP/IP is functioning OK. If it
371 is, the problem is most likely name resolution.
373 If your client has a facility to do so, hardcode a mapping between the
374 hosts IP and the name you want to use. For example, with Man Manager
375 or Windows for Workgroups you would put a suitable entry in the file
376 LMHOSTS. If this works, the problem is in the communication between
377 your client and the netbios name server. If it does not work, then
378 there is something fundamental wrong with your naming and the solution
379 is beyond the scope of this document.
381 If you do not have any server on your subnet supplying netbios name
382 resolution, hardcoded mappings are your only option. If you DO have a
383 netbios name server running (such as the Samba suite's nmbd program),
384 the problem probably lies in the way it is set up. Refer to Section
385 Two of this FAQ for more ideas.
387 By the way, remember to REMOVE the hardcoded mapping before further
390 2.5. similar My client reports "cannot locate specified share name"
393 This message indicates that your client CAN locate the specified
394 server, which is a good start, but that it cannot find a service of
397 The first step is to check the exact name of the service you are
398 trying to connect to (consult your system administrator). Assuming it
399 exists and you specified it correctly (read your client's doco on how
400 to specify a service name correctly), read on:
402 * Many clients cannot accept or use service names longer than eight
403 characters. * Many clients cannot accept or use service names
404 containing spaces. * Some servers (not Samba though) are case
405 sensitive with service names. * Some clients force service names into
408 2.6. on to the network" or similar My client reports "cannot find
409 domain controller", "cannot log
411 Nothing is wrong - Samba does not implement the primary domain name
412 controller stuff for several reasons, including the fact that the
413 whole concept of a primary domain controller and "logging in to a
414 network" doesn't fit well with clients possibly running on multiuser
415 machines (such as users of smbclient under Unix). Having said that,
416 several developers are working hard on building it in to the next
417 major version of Samba. If you can contribute, send a message to
420 Seeing this message should not affect your ability to mount redirected
421 disks and printers, which is really what all this is about.
423 For many clients (including Windows for Workgroups and Lan Manager),
424 setting the domain to STANDALONE at least gets rid of the message.
426 2.7. Printing doesn't work :-(
428 Make sure that the specified print command for the service you are
429 connecting to is correct and that it has a fully-qualified path (eg.,
430 use "/usr/bin/lpr" rather than just "lpr").
432 Make sure that the spool directory specified for the service is
433 writable by the user connected to the service. In particular the user
434 "nobody" often has problems with printing, even if it worked with an
435 earlier version of Samba. Try creating another guest user other than
438 Make sure that the user specified in the service is permitted to use
441 Check the debug log produced by smbd. Search for the printer name and
442 see if the log turns up any clues. Note that error messages to do with
443 a service ipc$ are meaningless - they relate to the way the client
444 attempts to retrieve status information when using the LANMAN1
447 If using WfWg then you need to set the default protocol to TCP/IP, not
448 Netbeui. This is a WfWg bug.
450 If using the Lanman1 protocol (the default) then try switching to
451 coreplus. Also not that print status error messages don't mean
452 printing won't work. The print status is received by a different
455 2.8. My programs install on the server OK, but refuse to work prop-
458 There are numerous possible reasons for this, but one MAJOR
459 possibility is that your software uses locking. Make sure you are
460 using Samba 1.6.11 or later. It may also be possible to work around
461 the problem by setting "locking=no" in the Samba configuration file
462 for the service the software is installed on. This should be regarded
463 as a strictly temporary solution.
465 In earlier Samba versions there were some difficulties with the very
466 latest Microsoft products, particularly Excel 5 and Word for Windows
467 6. These should have all been solved. If not then please let Andrew
470 2.9. My "server string" doesn't seem to be recognised
472 my client reports the default setting, eg. "Samba 1.9.15p4", instead
473 of what I have changed it to in the smb.conf file.
475 You need to use the -C option in nmbd. The "server string" affects
476 what smbd puts out and -C affects what nmbd puts out. In a future
477 version these will probably be combined and -C will be removed, but
480 2.10. resources" My client reports "This server is not configured to
483 Your guest account is probably invalid for some reason. Samba uses the
484 guest account for browsing in smbd. Check that your guest account is
487 See also 'guest account' in smb.conf man page.
489 2.11. Log message "you appear to have a trapdoor uid system"
491 This can have several causes. It might be because you are using a uid
492 or gid of 65535 or -1. This is a VERY bad idea, and is a big security
493 hole. Check carefully in your /etc/passwd file and make sure that no
494 user has uid 65535 or -1. Especially check the "nobody" user, as many
495 broken systems are shipped with nobody setup with a uid of 65535.
497 It might also mean that your OS has a trapdoor uid/gid system :-)
499 This means that once a process changes effective uid from root to
500 another user it can't go back to root. Unfortunately Samba relies on
501 being able to change effective uid from root to non-root and back
502 again to implement its security policy. If your OS has a trapdoor uid
503 system this won't work, and several things in Samba may break. Less
504 things will break if you use user or server level security instead of
505 the default share level security, but you may still strike problems.
507 The problems don't give rise to any security holes, so don't panic,
508 but it does mean some of Samba's capabilities will be unavailable. In
509 particular you will not be able to connect to the Samba server as two
510 different uids at once. This may happen if you try to print as a
511 "guest" while accessing a share as a normal user. It may also affect
512 your ability to list the available shares as this is normally done as
515 Complain to your OS vendor and ask them to fix their system.
517 Note: the reason why 65535 is a VERY bad choice of uid and gid is that
518 it casts to -1 as a uid, and the setreuid() system call ignores (with
519 no error) uid changes to -1. This means any daemon attempting to run
520 as uid 65535 will actually run as root. This is not good!
522 3. Common client questions
524 3.1. Are any Macintosh clients for Samba
526 lkcl - update 09mar97 - the answer is "Yes!". Thursby now have a
527 CIFS Client / Server - see www.thursby.com. They test it against
528 Windows 95, Windows NT and samba for compatibility issues. At
529 present, DAVE is at version 1.0.0. DAVE version 1.0.1 is in beta,
530 and will be released in April 97 (the speed of finder copies has
531 been greatly enhanced, and there are bug-fixes included).
533 Alternatives - There are two free implementations of AppleTalk for
534 several kinds of UNIX machnes, and several more commercial ones.
535 These products allow you to run file services and print services
536 natively to Macintosh users, with no additional support required on
537 the Macintosh. The two free omplementations are Netatalk,
538 http://www.umich.edu/~rsug/netatalk/, and CAP,
539 http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/appletalk/atalk.html. What Samba offers
540 MS Windows users, these packages offer to Macs. For more info on
541 these packages, Samba, and Linux (and other UNIX-based systems)
542 see http://www.eats.com/linux_mac_win.html
544 3.2. Session request failed (131,130)" error
546 The following answer is provided by John E. Miller:
548 I'll assume that you're able to ping back and forth between the
549 machines by IP address and name, and that you're using some security
550 model where you're confident that you've got user IDs and passwords
551 right. The logging options (-d3 or greater) can help a lot with that.
552 DNS and WINS configuration can also impact connectivity as well.
554 Now, on to 'scope id's. Somewhere in your Win95 TCP/IP network
555 configuration (I'm too much of an NT bigot to know where it's located
556 in the Win95 setup, but I'll have to learn someday since I teach for a
557 Microsoft Solution Provider Authorized Tech Education Center - what an
558 acronym...) Note: It's under Control Panel | Network | TCP/IP | WINS
559 Configuration there's a little text entry field called something like
561 This field essentially creates 'invisible' sub-workgroups on the same
562 wire. Boxes can only see other boxes whose Scope IDs are set to the
563 exact same value - it's sometimes used by OEMs to configure their
564 boxes to browse only other boxes from the same vendor and, in most
565 environments, this field should be left blank. If you, in fact, have
566 something in this box that EXACT value (case-sensitive!) needs to be
567 provided to smbclient and nmbd as the -i (lowercase) parameter. So, if
568 your Scope ID is configured as the string 'SomeStr' in Win95 then
569 you'd have to use smbclient -iSomeStr otherparms in connecting to it.
571 3.3. How do I synchronise my PC's clock with my Samba server?
573 To syncronize your PC's clock with your Samba server:
575 * Copy timesync.pif to your windows directory * timesync.pif can be
577 http://samba.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/binaries/miscellaneous/timesync.pif
578 * Add timesync.pif to your 'Start Up' group/folder * Open the
579 properties dialog box for the program/icon * Make sure the 'Run
580 Minimized' option is set in program * Change the command line section
581 that reads \sambahost to reflect the name of your server. * Close the
582 properties dialog box by choosing 'OK'
584 Each time you start your computer (or login for Win95) your PC will
585 synchronize it's clock with your Samba server.
587 Alternatively, you can set up domain logons - see:
588 ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/samba/BROWSING.txt *** for more information.
590 Then, add NET TIME \\%L /SET /YES as one of the lines in the logon script.
592 3.4. Problems with WinDD, NTrigue, WinCenterPro etc
594 All of the above programs are applications that sit on an NT box and
595 allow multiple users to access the NT GUI applications from remote
596 workstations (often over X).
598 What has this got to do with Samba? The problem comes when these users
599 use filemanager to mount shares from a Samba server. The most common
600 symptom is that the first user to connect get correct file permissions
601 and has a nice day, but subsequent connections get logged in as the
602 same user as the first person to login. They find that they cannot
603 access files in their own home directory, but that they can access
604 files in the first users home directory (maybe not such a nice day
607 Why does this happen? The above products all share a common heritage
608 (and code base I believe). They all open just a single TCP based SMB
609 connection to the Samba server, and requests from all users are piped
610 over this connection. This is unfortunate, but not fatal.
612 It means that if you run your Samba server in share level security
613 (the default) then things will definately break as described above.
614 The share level SMB security model has no provision for multiple user
615 IDs on the one SMB connection. See security_level.txt in the docs for
616 more info on share/user/server level security.
618 If you run in user or server level security then you have a chance,
619 but only if you have a recent version of Samba (at least 1.9.15p6). In
620 older versions bugs in Samba meant you still would have had problems.
622 If you have a trapdoor uid system in your OS then it will never work
623 properly. Samba needs to be able to switch uids on the connection and
624 it can't if your OS has a trapdoor uid system. You'll know this
625 because Samba will note it in your logs.
627 Also note that you should not use the magic "homes" share name with
628 products like these, as otherwise all users will end up with the same
629 home directory. Use \serversername instead.
631 3.5. Problem with printers under NT
633 This info from Stefan Hergeth hergeth@f7axp1.informatik.fh-muenchen.de
636 A network-printer (with ethernetcard) is connected to the NT-Clients
637 via our UNIX-Fileserver (SAMBA-Server), like the configuration told by
638 Matthew Harrell harrell@leech.nrl.navy.mil (see WinNT.txt)
640 1.) If a user has choosen this printer as the default printer in his
641 NT-Session and this printer is not connected to the network (e.g.
642 switched off) than this user has a problem with the SAMBA- connection
643 of his filesystems. It's very slow.
645 2.) If the printer is connected to the network everything works fine.
647 3.) When the smbd ist started with debug level 3, you can see that the
648 NT spooling system try to connect to the printer many times. If the
649 printer ist not connected to the network this request fails and the NT
650 spooler is wasting a lot of time to connect to the printer service.
651 This seems to be the reason for the slow network connection.
653 4.) Maybe it's possible to change this behaviour by setting different
654 printer properties in the Print-Manager-Menu of NT, but i didn't try
657 3.6. Why are my file's timestamps off by an hour, or by a few hours?
659 This is from Paul Eggert eggert@twinsun.com.
661 Most likely it's a problem with your time zone settings.
663 Internally, Samba maintains time in traditional Unix format, namely,
664 the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Universal Time (or
665 ``GMT''), not counting leap seconds.
667 On the server side, Samba uses the Unix TZ variable to convert
668 internal timestamps to and from local time. So on the server side,
669 there are two things to get right.
671 1. The Unix system clock must have the correct Universal time. Use
672 the shell command "sh -c 'TZ=UTC0 date'" to check this.
674 2. The TZ environment variable must be set on the server before Samba
675 is invoked. The details of this depend on the server OS, but
676 typically you must edit a file whose name is /etc/TIMEZONE or
677 /etc/default/init, or run the command `zic -l'.
679 3. TZ must have the correct value.
681 3a. If possible, use geographical time zone settings (e.g.
682 TZ='America/Los_Angeles' or perhaps TZ=':US/Pacific'). These are
683 supported by most popular Unix OSes, are easier to get right, and are
684 more accurate for historical timestamps. If your operating system has
685 out-of-date tables, you should be able to update them from the public
686 domain time zone tables at URL:ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/.
688 3b. If your system does not support geographical time zone settings,
689 you must use a Posix-style TZ strings, e.g.
690 TZ='PST8PDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2' for US Pacific time. Posix TZ strings
691 can take the following form (with optional items in brackets):
693 StdOffsetDst[Offset,Date/Time,Date/Time]
697 `Std' is the standard time designation (e.g. `PST').
699 `Offset' is the number of hours behind UTC (e.g. `8'). Prepend a `-'
700 if you are ahead of UTC, and append `:30' if you are at a half-hour
701 offset. Omit all the remaining items if you do not use daylight-
704 `Dst' is the daylight-saving time designation (e.g. `PDT').
706 The optional second `Offset' is the number of hours that daylight-
707 saving time is behind UTC. The default is 1 hour ahead of standard
709 `Date/Time,Date/Time' specify when daylight-saving time starts and
710 ends. The format for a date is `Mm.n.d', which specifies the dth day
711 (0 is Sunday) of the nth week of the mth month, where week 5 means the
712 last such day in the month. The format for a time is hh:mm[:ss],
713 using a 24-hour clock.
715 Other Posix string formats are allowed but you don't want to know
718 On the client side, you must make sure that your client's clock and
719 time zone is also set appropriately. [I don't know how to do this.]
720 Samba traditionally has had many problems dealing with time zones, due
721 to the bizarre ways that Microsoft network protocols handle time
722 zones. A common symptom is for file timestamps to be off by an hour.
723 To work around the problem, try disconnecting from your Samba server
724 and then reconnecting to it; or upgrade your Samba server to
725 1.9.16alpha10 or later.
727 3.7. How do I set the printer driver name correctly?
729 Question: > On NT, I opened "Printer Manager" and "Connect to
730 Printer". > Enter "\ptdi270s1"
731 in the box of printer. I got the > following error message: > >
732 You do not have sufficient access to your machine > to connect to
733 the selected printer, since a driver > needs to be installed
738 In the more recent versions of Samba you can now set the "printer
739 driver" in smb.conf. This tells the client what driver to use. For
742 printer driver = HP LaserJet 4L
744 and NT knows to use the right driver. You have to get this string
747 To find the exact string to use, you need to get to the dialog box in
748 your client where you select which printer driver to install. The
749 correct strings for all the different printers are shown in a listbox
752 You could also try setting the driver to NULL like this:
754 printer driver = NULL
756 this is effectively what older versions of Samba did, so if that
757 worked for you then give it a go. If this does work then let me know
758 and I'll make it the default. Currently the default is a 0 length
761 4. Specific client application problems
763 4.1. MS Office Setup reports "Cannot change properties of "MSOF-
766 When installing MS Office on a Samba drive for which you have admin
767 user permissions, ie. admin users = username, you will find the setup
768 program unable to complete the installation.
770 To get around this problem, do the installation without admin user
771 permissions The problem is that MS Office Setup checks that a file is
772 rdonly by trying to open it for writing.
774 Admin users can always open a file for writing, as they run as root.
775 You just have to install as a non-admin user and then use "chown -R"