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  10 <H2><A NAME="s1">1. What is Samba?</A></H2>
  11
  12 <P>
  13 <A NAME="WhatIsSamba"></A>
  14 </P>
  15 <P>See the
  16 <A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#introduction">meta FAQ introduction</A> if you don't have any idea what Samba does.</P>
  17 <P>Samba has many features that are not supported in other CIFS and SMB
  18 implementations, all of which are commercial. It approaches some
  19 problems from a different angle.</P>
  20 <P>Some of its features include:
  21 <UL>
  22 <LI>extremely dynamic runtime configuration</LI>
  23 <LI>host as well as username/password security</LI>
  24 <LI>scriptable SMB client</LI>
  25 <LI>automatic home directory exporting</LI>
  26 <LI>automatic printer exporting</LI>
  27 <LI>intelligent dead connection timeouts</LI>
  28 <LI>guest connections</LI>
  29 </UL>
  30 </P>
  31 <P>Look at the
  32 <A HREF="samba-man-index.html">manual pages</A> included with the package for a full list of
  33 features. The components of the suite are (in summary):</P>
  34 <P>
  35 <DL>
  36
  37 <DT><B>smbd</B><DD><P>the SMB server. This handles actual connections from clients,
  38 doing all the interfacing with the
  39 <A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#DomainModeSecurity">authentication database</A> for file, permission and username work.</P>
  40
  41 <DT><B>nmbd</B><DD><P>the NetBIOS name server, which helps clients locate servers,
  42 maintaining the
  43 <A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#BrowseAndDomainDefs">authentication database</A> doing the browsing work and managing
  44 domains as this capability is being built into Samba.</P>
  45
  46 <DT><B>smbclient</B><DD><P>the scriptable commandline SMB client program.
  47 Useful for automated work, printer filters and testing purposes. It is
  48 more CIFS-compliant than most commercial implementations. Note that this
  49 is not a filesystem. The Samba team does not supply a network filesystem
  50 driver, although the smbfs filesystem for Linux is derived from
  51 smbclient code.</P>
  52
  53 <DT><B>smbrun</B><DD><P>a little 'glue' program to help the server run
  54 external programs.</P>
  55
  56 <DT><B>testprns</B><DD><P>a program to test server access to printers</P>
  57
  58 <DT><B>testparms</B><DD><P>a program to test the Samba configuration file
  59 for correctness</P>
  60
  61 <DT><B>smb.conf</B><DD><P>the Samba configuration file</P>
  62
  63 <DT><B>examples</B><DD><P>many examples have been put together for the different
  64 operating systems that Samba supports.</P>
  65
  66 <DT><B>Documentation!</B><DD><P>DON'T neglect to read it - you will save a great
  67 deal of time!</P>
  68
  69 </DL>
  70 </P>
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