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1 <!doctype linuxdoc system> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
2 <!--
3 v 0.5 18 Oct 1996 Dan Shearer Dan.Shearer@unisa.edu.au
4 First linuxdoc-sgml version, outline only
5 v 0.6 25 Oct 1996 Dan
6 Filled in from current text faq
7 v 0.7 1 June 1997 Paul
8 Replicated changes in txt faq to sgml faq
9 9 June 1997 Paul
10 Lots of changes, added doco list, updated compatible systems list
11 added NT SP3 entry, added Year 2000 entry, Getting ready for 1.9.17
12 v 0.8 7th Oct 97 Paul
13 changed samba.canberra entries to samba.anu.../samba/
14 -->
16 <article>
18 <title> Samba FAQ
20 <author>Paul Blackman, <tt>ictinus@samba.org</tt>
22 <date>v 0.8, June '97
24 <abstract> This is the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document for
25 Samba, the free and very popular SMB server product. An SMB server
26 allows file and printer connections from clients such as Windows,
27 OS/2, Linux and others. Current to version 1.9.17. Please send any
28 corrections to the author.
29 </abstract>
31 <toc>
33 <sect> General Information<p> <label id="general_info">
35 All about Samba - what it is, how to get it, related sources of
36 information, how to understand the version numbering scheme, pizza
37 details
39 <sect1> What is Samba? <p> <label id="introduction">
40 Samba is a suite of programs which work together to allow clients to
41 access to a server's filespace and printers via the SMB (Server
42 Message Block) protocol. Initially written for Unix, Samba now also
43 runs on Netware, OS/2 and VMS.
45 In practice, this means that you can redirect disks and printers to
46 Unix disks and printers from Lan Manager clients, Windows for
47 Workgroups 3.11 clients, Windows NT clients, Linux clients and OS/2
48 clients. There is also a generic Unix client program supplied as part
49 of the suite which allows Unix users to use an ftp-like interface to
50 access filespace and printers on any other SMB servers. This gives the
51 capability for these operating systems to behave much like a LAN
52 Server or Windows NT Server machine, only with added functionality and
53 flexibility designed to make life easier for administrators.
55 The components of the suite are (in summary):
57 <itemize>
58 <item><bf>smbd</bf>, the SMB server. This handles actual connections from clients, doing all the file, permission and username work
59 <item><bf>nmbd</bf>, the Netbios name server, which helps clients locate servers, doing the browsing work and managing domains as this capability is being built into Samba
60 <item><bf>smbclient</bf>, the Unix-hosted client program
61 <item><bf>smbrun</bf>, a little 'glue' program to help the server run external programs
62 <item><bf>testprns</bf>, a program to test server access to printers
63 <item><bf>testparms</bf>, a program to test the Samba configuration file for correctness
64 <item><bf>smb.conf</bf>, the Samba configuration file
65 <item><bf>smbprint</bf>, a sample script to allow a Unix host to use smbclient to print to an SMB server
66 <item><bf>Documentation!</bf> DON'T neglect to read it - you will save a great deal of time!
67 </itemize>
69 The suite is supplied with full source (of course!) and is GPLed.
71 The primary creator of the Samba suite is Andrew Tridgell. Later
72 versions incorporate much effort by many net.helpers. The man pages
73 and this FAQ were originally written by Karl Auer.
75 <sect1> What is the current version of Samba? <p><label id="current_version">
76 At time of writing, the current version was 1.9.17. If you want to be
77 sure check the bottom of the change-log file. <url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/alpha/change-log">
79 For more information see <ref id="version_nums" name="What do the
80 version numbers mean?">
82 <sect1> Where can I get it? <p> <label id="where">
83 The Samba suite is available via anonymous ftp from
84 samba.org. The latest and greatest versions of the suite are in
85 the directory:
87 /pub/samba/
89 Development (read "alpha") versions, which are NOT necessarily stable
90 and which do NOT necessarily have accurate documentation, are
91 available in the directory:
93 /pub/samba/alpha
95 Note that binaries are NOT included in any of the above. Samba is
96 distributed ONLY in source form, though binaries may be available from
97 other sites. Recent versions of some Linux distributions, for example,
98 do contain Samba binaries for that platform.
100 <sect1> What do the version numbers mean? <p> <label id="version_nums">
101 It is not recommended that you run a version of Samba with the word
102 "alpha" in its name unless you know what you are doing and are willing
103 to do some debugging. Many, many people just get the latest
104 recommended stable release version and are happy. If you are brave, by
105 all means take the plunge and help with the testing and development -
106 but don't install it on your departmental server. Samba is typically
107 very stable and safe, and this is mostly due to the policy of many
108 public releases.
110 How the scheme works:
111 <enum>
112 <item>When major changes are made the version number is increased. For
113 example, the transition from 1.9.15 to 1.9.16. However, this version
114 number will not appear immediately and people should continue to use
115 1.9.15 for production systems (see next point.)
117 <item>Just after major changes are made the software is considered
118 unstable, and a series of alpha releases are distributed, for example
119 1.9.16alpha1. These are for testing by those who know what they are
120 doing. The "alpha" in the filename will hopefully scare off those who
121 are just looking for the latest version to install.
123 <item>When Andrew thinks that the alphas have stabilised to the point
124 where he would recommend new users install it, he renames it to the
125 same version number without the alpha, for example 1.9.16.
127 <item>Inevitably bugs are found in the "stable" releases and minor patch
128 levels are released which give us the pXX series, for example 1.9.16p2.
129 </enum>
130 So the progression goes:
131 <verb>
132 1.9.15p7 (production)
133 1.9.15p8 (production)
134 1.9.16alpha1 (test sites only)
136 1.9.16alpha20 (test sites only)
137 1.9.16 (production)
138 1.9.16p1 (production)
139 </verb>
140 The above system means that whenever someone looks at the samba ftp
141 site they will be able to grab the highest numbered release without an
142 alpha in the name and be sure of getting the current recommended
143 version.
145 <sect1> What platforms are supported? <p> <label id="platforms">
146 Many different platforms have run Samba successfully. The platforms
147 most widely used and thus best tested are Linux and SunOS.
149 At time of writing, the Makefile claimed support for:
150 <itemize>
151 <item> A/UX 3.0
152 <item> AIX
153 <item> Altos Series 386/1000
154 <item> Amiga
155 <item> Apollo Domain/OS sr10.3
156 <item> BSDI
157 <item> B.O.S. (Bull Operating System)
158 <item> Cray, Unicos 8.0
159 <item> Convex
160 <item> DGUX.
161 <item> DNIX.
162 <item> FreeBSD
163 <item> HP-UX
164 <item> Intergraph.
165 <item> Linux with/without shadow passwords and quota
166 <item> LYNX 2.3.0
167 <item> MachTen (a unix like system for Macintoshes)
168 <item> Motorola 88xxx/9xx range of machines
169 <item> NetBSD
170 <item> NEXTSTEP Release 2.X, 3.0 and greater (including OPENSTEP for Mach).
171 <item> OS/2 using EMX 0.9b
172 <item> OSF1
173 <item> QNX 4.22
174 <item> RiscIX.
175 <item> RISCOs 5.0B
176 <item> SEQUENT.
177 <item> SCO (including: 3.2v2, European dist., OpenServer 5)
178 <item> SGI.
179 <item> SMP_DC.OSx v1.1-94c079 on Pyramid S series
180 <item> SONY NEWS, NEWS-OS (4.2.x and 6.1.x)
181 <item> SUNOS 4
182 <item> SUNOS 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4 (Solaris 2.2, 2.3, and '2.4 and later')
183 <item> Sunsoft ISC SVR3V4
184 <item> SVR4
185 <item> System V with some berkely extensions (Motorola 88k R32V3.2).
186 <item> ULTRIX.
187 <item> UNIXWARE
188 <item> UXP/DS
189 </itemize>
191 <sect1> How can I find out more about Samba? <p> <label id="more">
192 There are a number of places to look for more information on Samba, including:
193 <itemize>
194 <item>Two mailing lists devoted to discussion of Samba-related matters.
195 <item>The newsgroup, comp.protocols.smb, which has a great deal of discussion on Samba.
196 <item>The WWW site 'SAMBA Web Pages' at <url url="http://samba.edu.au/samba/"> includes:
197 <itemize>
198 <item>Links to man pages and documentation, including this FAQ
199 <item>A comprehensive survey of Samba users.
200 <item>A searchable hypertext archive of the Samba mailing list.
201 <item>Links to Samba source code, binaries, and mirrors of both.
202 </itemize>
203 <item>The long list of topic documentation. These files can be found in the 'docs' directory of the Samba source, or at <url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/">
204 <itemize>
205 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/Application_Serving.txt" name="Application_Serving.txt">
206 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/BROWSING.txt" name="BROWSING.txt">
207 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/BUGS.txt" name="BUGS.txt">
208 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/DIAGNOSIS.txt" name="DIAGNOSIS.txt">
209 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/DNIX.txt" name="DNIX.txt">
210 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/DOMAIN.txt" name="DOMAIN.txt">
211 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/DOMAIN_CONTROL.txt" name="CONTROL.txt">
212 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/ENCRYPTION.txt" name="ENCRYPTION.txt">
213 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/Faxing.txt" name="Faxing.txt">
214 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/GOTCHAS.txt" name="GOTCHAS.txt">
215 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/HINTS.txt" name="HINTS.txt">
216 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/INSTALL.sambatar" name="INSTALL.sambatar">
217 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/INSTALL.txt" name="INSTALL.txt">
218 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/MIRRORS" name="MIRRORS">
219 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/NetBIOS.txt" name="NetBIOS.txt">
220 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/OS2.txt" name="OS2.txt">
221 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/PROJECTS" name="PROJECTS">
222 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/Passwords.txt" name="Passwords.txt">
223 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/Printing.txt" name="Printing.txt">
224 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/README.DCEDFS" name="README.DCEDFS">
225 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/README.OS2" name="README.OS2">
226 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/README.jis" name="README.jis">
227 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/README.sambatar" name="README.sambatar">
228 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/SCO.txt" name="SCO.txt">
229 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/SMBTAR.notes" name="SMBTAR.notes">
230 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/Speed.txt" name="Speed.txt">
231 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/Support.txt" name="Support.txt">
232 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/THANKS" name="THANKS">
233 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/Tracing.txt" name="Tracing.txt">
234 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/UNIX-SMB.txt" name="SMB.txt">
235 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/Warp.txt" name="Warp.txt">
236 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/WinNT.txt" name="WinNT.txt">
237 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/history" name="history">
238 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/security_level.txt" name="level.txt">
239 <item><url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/wfw_slip.htm" name="slip.htm">
240 </itemize>
241 </itemize>
243 <sect1>How do I subscribe to the Samba Mailing Lists?<p><label id="mailinglist">
244 Send email to <htmlurl url="mailto:listproc@samba.org" name="listproc@samba.org">. Make sure the subject line is
245 blank, and include the following two lines in the body of the message:
246 <tscreen><verb>
247 subscribe samba Firstname Lastname
248 subscribe samba-announce Firstname Lastname
249 </verb></tscreen>
250 Obviously you should substitute YOUR first name for "Firstname" and
251 YOUR last name for "Lastname"! Try not to send any signature stuff, it
252 sometimes confuses the list processor.
254 The samba list is a digest list - every eight hours or so it
255 regurgitates a single message containing all the messages that have
256 been received by the list since the last time and sends a copy of this
257 message to all subscribers.
259 If you stop being interested in Samba, please send another email to
260 <htmlurl url="mailto:listproc@samba.org" name="listproc@samba.org">. Make sure the subject line is blank, and
261 include the following two lines in the body of the message:
262 <tscreen><verb>
263 unsubscribe samba
264 unsubscribe samba-announce
265 </verb></tscreen>
266 The <bf>From:</bf> line in your message <em>MUST</em> be the same address you used when
267 you subscribed.
269 <sect1> Something's gone wrong - what should I do? <p> <label id="wrong">
270 <bf>[#] *** IMPORTANT! *** [#]</bf>
271 <p>DO NOT post messages on mailing lists or in newsgroups until you have
272 carried out the first three steps given here!
274 Firstly, see if there are any likely looking entries in this FAQ! If
275 you have just installed Samba, have you run through the checklist in
276 <url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/DIAGNOSIS.txt" name="DIAGNOSIS.txt">? It can save you a lot of time and effort.
277 DIAGNOSIS.txt can also be found in the docs directory of the Samba distribution.
279 Secondly, read the man pages for smbd, nmbd and smb.conf, looking for
280 topics that relate to what you are trying to do.
282 Thirdly, if there is no obvious solution to hand, try to get a look at
283 the log files for smbd and/or nmbd for the period during which you
284 were having problems. You may need to reconfigure the servers to
285 provide more extensive debugging information - usually level 2 or
286 level 3 provide ample debugging info. Inspect these logs closely,
287 looking particularly for the string "Error:".
289 Fourthly, if you still haven't got anywhere, ask the mailing list or
290 newsgroup. In general nobody minds answering questions provided you
291 have followed the preceding steps. It might be a good idea to scan the
292 archives of the mailing list, which are available through the Samba
293 web site described in the previous
294 section.
296 If you successfully solve a problem, please mail the FAQ maintainer a
297 succinct description of the symptom, the problem and the solution, so
298 I can incorporate it in the next version.
300 If you make changes to the source code, _please_ submit these patches
301 so that everyone else gets the benefit of your work. This is one of
302 the most important aspects to the maintainence of Samba. Send all
303 patches to <htmlurl url="mailto:samba-patches@samba.org" name="samba-patches@samba.org">. Do not send patches to Andrew Tridgell or any
304 other individual, they may be lost if you do.
306 <sect1> Pizza supply details <p> <label id="pizza">
307 Those who have registered in the Samba survey as "Pizza Factory" will
308 already know this, but the rest may need some help. Andrew doesn't ask
309 for payment, but he does appreciate it when people give him
310 pizza. This calls for a little organisation when the pizza donor is
311 twenty thousand kilometres away, but it has been done.
313 Method 1: Ring up your local branch of an international pizza chain
314 and see if they honour their vouchers internationally. Pizza Hut do,
315 which is how the entire Canberra Linux Users Group got to eat pizza
316 one night, courtesy of someone in the US
318 Method 2: Ring up a local pizza shop in Canberra and quote a credit
319 card number for a certain amount, and tell them that Andrew will be
320 collecting it (don't forget to tell him.) One kind soul from Germany
321 did this.
323 Method 3: Purchase a pizza voucher from your local pizza shop that has
324 no international affiliations and send it to Andrew. It is completely
325 useless but he can hang it on the wall next to the one he already has
326 from Germany :-)
328 Method 4: Air freight him a pizza with your favourite regional
329 flavours. It will probably get stuck in customs or torn apart by
330 hungry sniffer dogs but it will have been a noble gesture.
332 <sect>Compiling and installing Samba on a Unix host<p><label id="unix_install">
334 <sect1>I can't see the Samba server in any browse lists!<p><label id="no_browse">
335 See <url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/BROWSING.txt" name="BROWSING.txt">
336 for more information on browsing. Browsing.txt can also be found
337 in the docs directory of the Samba source.
339 If your GUI client does not permit you to select non-browsable
340 servers, you may need to do so on the command line. For example, under
341 Lan Manager you might connect to the above service as disk drive M:
342 thusly:
343 <tscreen><verb>
344 net use M: \\mary\fred
345 </verb></tscreen>
346 The details of how to do this and the specific syntax varies from
347 client to client - check your client's documentation.
349 <sect1>Some files that I KNOW are on the server doesn't show up when I view the files from my client! <p> <label id="missing_files">
350 See the next question.
351 <sect1>Some files on the server show up with really wierd filenames when I view the files from my client! <p> <label id="strange_filenames">
352 If you check what files are not showing up, you will note that they
353 are files which contain upper case letters or which are otherwise not
354 DOS-compatible (ie, they are not legal DOS filenames for some reason).
356 The Samba server can be configured either to ignore such files
357 completely, or to present them to the client in "mangled" form. If you
358 are not seeing the files at all, the Samba server has most likely been
359 configured to ignore them. Consult the man page smb.conf(5) for
360 details of how to change this - the parameter you need to set is
361 "mangled names = yes".
363 <sect1>My client reports "cannot locate specified computer" or similar<p><label id="cant_see_server">
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
388 tests :-)
390 <sect1>My client reports "cannot locate specified share name" or similar<p> <label id="cant_see_share">
391 This message indicates that your client CAN locate the specified
392 server, which is a good start, but that it cannot find a service of
393 the name you gave.
395 The first step is to check the exact name of the service you are
396 trying to connect to (consult your system administrator). Assuming it
397 exists and you specified it correctly (read your client's doco on how
398 to specify a service name correctly), read on:
400 <itemize>
401 <item> Many clients cannot accept or use service names longer than eight characters.
402 <item> Many clients cannot accept or use service names containing spaces.
403 <item> Some servers (not Samba though) are case sensitive with service names.
404 <item> Some clients force service names into upper case.
405 </itemize>
407 <sect1>My client reports "cannot find domain controller", "cannot log on to the network" or similar <p> <label id="cant_see_net">
408 Nothing is wrong - Samba does not implement the primary domain name
409 controller stuff for several reasons, including the fact that the
410 whole concept of a primary domain controller and "logging in to a
411 network" doesn't fit well with clients possibly running on multiuser
412 machines (such as users of smbclient under Unix). Having said that,
413 several developers are working hard on building it in to the next
414 major version of Samba. If you can contribute, send a message to
415 <htmlurl url="mailto:samba@samba.org" name="samba@samba.org"> !
417 Seeing this message should not affect your ability to mount redirected
418 disks and printers, which is really what all this is about.
420 For many clients (including Windows for Workgroups and Lan Manager),
421 setting the domain to STANDALONE at least gets rid of the message.
423 <sect1>Printing doesn't work :-(<p> <label id="no_printing">
424 Make sure that the specified print command for the service you are
425 connecting to is correct and that it has a fully-qualified path (eg.,
426 use "/usr/bin/lpr" rather than just "lpr").
428 Make sure that the spool directory specified for the service is
429 writable by the user connected to the service. In particular the user
430 "nobody" often has problems with printing, even if it worked with an
431 earlier version of Samba. Try creating another guest user other than
432 "nobody".
434 Make sure that the user specified in the service is permitted to use
435 the printer.
437 Check the debug log produced by smbd. Search for the printer name and
438 see if the log turns up any clues. Note that error messages to do with
439 a service ipc$ are meaningless - they relate to the way the client
440 attempts to retrieve status information when using the LANMAN1
441 protocol.
443 If using WfWg then you need to set the default protocol to TCP/IP, not
444 Netbeui. This is a WfWg bug.
446 If using the Lanman1 protocol (the default) then try switching to
447 coreplus. Also not that print status error messages don't mean
448 printing won't work. The print status is received by a different
449 mechanism.
451 <sect1>My programs install on the server OK, but refuse to work properly<p><label id="programs_wont_run">
452 There are numerous possible reasons for this, but one MAJOR
453 possibility is that your software uses locking. Make sure you are
454 using Samba 1.6.11 or later. It may also be possible to work around
455 the problem by setting "locking=no" in the Samba configuration file
456 for the service the software is installed on. This should be regarded
457 as a strictly temporary solution.
459 In earlier Samba versions there were some difficulties with the very
460 latest Microsoft products, particularly Excel 5 and Word for Windows
461 6. These should have all been solved. If not then please let Andrew
462 Tridgell know via email at <htmlurl url="mailto:samba@samba.org" name="samba@samba.org">.
464 <sect1>My "server string" doesn't seem to be recognised<p><label id="bad_server_string">
465 OR My client reports the default setting, eg. "Samba 1.9.15p4", instead
466 of what I have changed it to in the smb.conf file.
468 You need to use the -C option in nmbd. The "server string" affects
469 what smbd puts out and -C affects what nmbd puts out.
471 Current versions of Samba (1.9.16 +) have combined these options into
472 the "server string" field of smb.conf, -C for nmbd is now obsolete.
474 <sect1>My client reports "This server is not configured to list shared resources" <p> <label id="cant_list_shares">
475 Your guest account is probably invalid for some reason. Samba uses the
476 guest account for browsing in smbd. Check that your guest account is
477 valid.
479 See also 'guest account' in smb.conf man page.
481 <sect1>Log message "you appear to have a trapdoor uid system" <p><label id="trapdoor_uid">
482 This can have several causes. It might be because you are using a uid
483 or gid of 65535 or -1. This is a VERY bad idea, and is a big security
484 hole. Check carefully in your /etc/passwd file and make sure that no
485 user has uid 65535 or -1. Especially check the "nobody" user, as many
486 broken systems are shipped with nobody setup with a uid of 65535.
488 It might also mean that your OS has a trapdoor uid/gid system :-)
490 This means that once a process changes effective uid from root to
491 another user it can't go back to root. Unfortunately Samba relies on
492 being able to change effective uid from root to non-root and back
493 again to implement its security policy. If your OS has a trapdoor uid
494 system this won't work, and several things in Samba may break. Less
495 things will break if you use user or server level security instead of
496 the default share level security, but you may still strike
497 problems.
499 The problems don't give rise to any security holes, so don't panic,
500 but it does mean some of Samba's capabilities will be unavailable.
501 In particular you will not be able to connect to the Samba server as
502 two different uids at once. This may happen if you try to print as a
503 "guest" while accessing a share as a normal user. It may also affect
504 your ability to list the available shares as this is normally done as
505 the guest user.
507 Complain to your OS vendor and ask them to fix their system.
509 Note: the reason why 65535 is a VERY bad choice of uid and gid is that
510 it casts to -1 as a uid, and the setreuid() system call ignores (with
511 no error) uid changes to -1. This means any daemon attempting to run
512 as uid 65535 will actually run as root. This is not good!
514 <sect>Common client questions<p> <label id="client_questions">
516 <sect1>Are there any Macintosh clients for Samba?<p> <label id="mac_clients">
517 Yes! Thursby now have a CIFS Client / Server called DAVE - see <url url="http://www.thursby.com/">.
518 They test it against Windows 95, Windows NT and samba for compatibility issues.
519 At the time of writing, DAVE was at version 1.0.1. The 1.0.0 to 1.0.1 update is available
520 as a free download from the Thursby web site (the speed of finder copies has
521 been greatly enhanced, and there are bug-fixes included).
523 Alternatives - There are two free implementations of AppleTalk for
524 several kinds of UNIX machnes, and several more commercial ones.
525 These products allow you to run file services and print services
526 natively to Macintosh users, with no additional support required on
527 the Macintosh. The two free omplementations are Netatalk,
528 <url url="http://www.umich.edu/~rsug/netatalk/">, and CAP,
529 <url url="http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/appletalk/atalk.html">. What Samba offers
530 MS Windows users, these packages offer to Macs. For more info on
531 these packages, Samba, and Linux (and other UNIX-based systems)
532 see <url url="http://www.eats.com/linux_mac_win.html">
534 <sect1>"Session request failed (131,130)" error<p> <label id="sess_req_fail">
535 The following answer is provided by John E. Miller:
537 I'll assume that you're able to ping back and forth between the
538 machines by IP address and name, and that you're using some security
539 model where you're confident that you've got user IDs and passwords
540 right. The logging options (-d3 or greater) can help a lot with that.
541 DNS and WINS configuration can also impact connectivity as well.
543 Now, on to 'scope id's. Somewhere in your Win95 TCP/IP network
544 configuration (I'm too much of an NT bigot to know where it's located
545 in the Win95 setup, but I'll have to learn someday since I teach for a
546 Microsoft Solution Provider Authorized Tech Education Center - what an
547 acronym...) [Note: It's under Control Panel | Network | TCP/IP | WINS
548 Configuration] there's a little text entry field called something like
549 'Scope ID'.
551 This field essentially creates 'invisible' sub-workgroups on the same
552 wire. Boxes can only see other boxes whose Scope IDs are set to the
553 exact same value - it's sometimes used by OEMs to configure their
554 boxes to browse only other boxes from the same vendor and, in most
555 environments, this field should be left blank. If you, in fact, have
556 something in this box that EXACT value (case-sensitive!) needs to be
557 provided to smbclient and nmbd as the -i (lowercase) parameter. So, if
558 your Scope ID is configured as the string 'SomeStr' in Win95 then
559 you'd have to use smbclient -iSomeStr [otherparms] in connecting to
562 <sect1>How do I synchronise my PC's clock with my Samba server? <p><label id="synchronise_clock">
563 To syncronize your PC's clock with your Samba server:
564 <itemize>
565 <item> Copy timesync.pif to your windows directory
566 <item> timesync.pif can be found at:
567 <url
568 url="http://samba.org/samba/binaries/miscellaneous/timesync.pif">
569 <item> Add timesync.pif to your 'Start Up' group/folder
570 <item> Open the properties dialog box for the program/icon
571 <item> Make sure the 'Run Minimized' option is set in program 'Properties'
572 <iteM> Change the command line section that reads [\\sambahost] to reflect the name of your server.
573 <item> Close the properties dialog box by choosing 'OK'
574 </itemize>
575 Each time you start your computer (or login for Win95) your PC will
576 synchronize its clock with your Samba server.
578 Alternativley, if you clients support Domain Logons, you can setup Domain Logons with Samba
579 - see: <url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/BROWSING.txt" name="BROWSING.txt"> *** for more information.
580 <p>Then add
581 <tscreen><verb>
582 NET TIME \\%L /SET /YES
583 </verb></tscreen>
584 as one of the lines in the logon script.
585 <sect1>Problems with WinDD, NTrigue, WinCenterPro etc<p>
586 <label id="multiple_session_clients">
588 All of the above programs are applications that sit on an NT box and
589 allow multiple users to access the NT GUI applications from remote
590 workstations (often over X).
592 What has this got to do with Samba? The problem comes when these users
593 use filemanager to mount shares from a Samba server. The most common
594 symptom is that the first user to connect get correct file permissions
595 and has a nice day, but subsequent connections get logged in as the
596 same user as the first person to login. They find that they cannot
597 access files in their own home directory, but that they can access
598 files in the first users home directory (maybe not such a nice day
599 after all?)
601 Why does this happen? The above products all share a common heritage
602 (and code base I believe). They all open just a single TCP based SMB
603 connection to the Samba server, and requests from all users are piped
604 over this connection. This is unfortunate, but not fatal.
606 It means that if you run your Samba server in share level security
607 (the default) then things will definately break as described
608 above. The share level SMB security model has no provision for
609 multiple user IDs on the one SMB connection. See <url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/security_level.txt" name="security_level.txt"> in
610 the docs for more info on share/user/server level security.
612 If you run in user or server level security then you have a chance,
613 but only if you have a recent version of Samba (at least 1.9.15p6). In
614 older versions bugs in Samba meant you still would have had problems.
616 If you have a trapdoor uid system in your OS then it will never work
617 properly. Samba needs to be able to switch uids on the connection and
618 it can't if your OS has a trapdoor uid system. You'll know this
619 because Samba will note it in your logs.
621 Also note that you should not use the magic "homes" share name with
622 products like these, as otherwise all users will end up with the same
623 home directory. Use [\\server\username] instead.
625 <sect1>Problem with printers under NT<p> <label id="nt_printers">
626 This info from Stefan Hergeth
627 hergeth@f7axp1.informatik.fh-muenchen.de may be useful:
629 A network-printer (with ethernetcard) is connected to the NT-Clients
630 via our UNIX-Fileserver (SAMBA-Server), like the configuration told by
631 Matthew Harrell harrell@leech.nrl.navy.mil (see WinNT.txt)
632 <enum>
633 <item>If a user has choosen this printer as the default printer in his
634 NT-Session and this printer is not connected to the network
635 (e.g. switched off) than this user has a problem with the SAMBA-
636 connection of his filesystems. It's very slow.
638 <item>If the printer is connected to the network everything works fine.
640 <item>When the smbd ist started with debug level 3, you can see that the
641 NT spooling system try to connect to the printer many times. If the
642 printer ist not connected to the network this request fails and the
643 NT spooler is wasting a lot of time to connect to the printer service.
644 This seems to be the reason for the slow network connection.
646 <item>Maybe it's possible to change this behaviour by setting different
647 printer properties in the Print-Manager-Menu of NT, but i didn't try it yet.
648 </enum>
650 <sect1>Why are my file's timestamps off by an hour, or by a few hours?<p><label id="dst_bugs">
651 This is from Paul Eggert eggert@twinsun.com.
653 Most likely it's a problem with your time zone settings.
655 Internally, Samba maintains time in traditional Unix format,
656 namely, the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Universal Time
657 (or ``GMT''), not counting leap seconds.
659 On the server side, Samba uses the Unix TZ variable to convert
660 internal timestamps to and from local time. So on the server side, there are
661 two things to get right.
662 <enum>
663 <item>The Unix system clock must have the correct Universal time.
664 Use the shell command "sh -c 'TZ=UTC0 date'" to check this.
666 <item>The TZ environment variable must be set on the server
667 before Samba is invoked. The details of this depend on the
668 server OS, but typically you must edit a file whose name is
669 /etc/TIMEZONE or /etc/default/init, or run the command `zic -l'.
671 <item>TZ must have the correct value.
672 <enum>
673 <item>If possible, use geographical time zone settings
674 (e.g. TZ='America/Los_Angeles' or perhaps
675 TZ=':US/Pacific'). These are supported by most
676 popular Unix OSes, are easier to get right, and are
677 more accurate for historical timestamps. If your
678 operating system has out-of-date tables, you should be
679 able to update them from the public domain time zone
680 tables at <url url="ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/">.
682 <item>If your system does not support geographical timezone
683 settings, you must use a Posix-style TZ strings, e.g.
684 TZ='PST8PDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2' for US Pacific time.
685 Posix TZ strings can take the following form (with optional
686 items in brackets):
687 <verb>
688 StdOffset[Dst[Offset],Date/Time,Date/Time]
689 </verb>
690 where:
691 <itemize>
692 <item> `Std' is the standard time designation (e.g. `PST').
694 <item> `Offset' is the number of hours behind UTC (e.g. `8').
695 Prepend a `-' if you are ahead of UTC, and
696 append `:30' if you are at a half-hour offset.
697 Omit all the remaining items if you do not use
698 daylight-saving time.
700 <item> `Dst' is the daylight-saving time designation
701 (e.g. `PDT').
703 The optional second `Offset' is the number of
704 hours that daylight-saving time is behind UTC.
705 The default is 1 hour ahead of standard time.
707 <item> `Date/Time,Date/Time' specify when daylight-saving
708 time starts and ends. The format for a date is
709 `Mm.n.d', which specifies the dth day (0 is Sunday)
710 of the nth week of the mth month, where week 5 means
711 the last such day in the month. The format for a
712 time is [h]h[:mm[:ss]], using a 24-hour clock.
713 </itemize>
714 Other Posix string formats are allowed but you don't want
715 to know about them.
716 </enum>
717 </enum>
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 <sect1> How do I set the printer driver name correctly? <p><label id="printer_driver_name">
728 Question:
729 On NT, I opened "Printer Manager" and "Connect to Printer".
730 Enter ["\\ptdi270\ps1"] in the box of printer. I got the
731 following error message:
732 <tscreen><verb>
733 You do not have sufficient access to your machine
734 to connect to the selected printer, since a driver
735 needs to be installed locally.
736 </verb></tscreen>
737 Answer:
739 In the more recent versions of Samba you can now set the "printer
740 driver" in smb.conf. This tells the client what driver to use. For
741 example:
742 <tscreen><verb>
743 printer driver = HP LaserJet 4L
744 </verb></tscreen>
745 with this, NT knows to use the right driver. You have to get this string
746 exactly right.
748 To find the exact string to use, you need to get to the dialog box in
749 your client where you select which printer driver to install. The
750 correct strings for all the different printers are shown in a listbox
751 in that dialog box.
753 You could also try setting the driver to NULL like this:
754 <tscreen><verb>
755 printer driver = NULL
756 </verb></tscreen>
757 this is effectively what older versions of Samba did, so if that
758 worked for you then give it a go. If this does work then let us know via <htmlurl url="mailto:samba@samba.org" name="samba@samba.org">,
759 and we'll make it the default. Currently the default is a 0 length
760 string.
762 <sect1>I've applied NT 4.0 SP3, and now I can't access Samba shares, Why?<p><label id="NT_SP3_FIX">
763 As of SP3, Microsoft has decided that they will no longer default to
764 passing clear text passwords over the network. To enable access to
765 Samba shares from NT 4.0 SP3, you must do <bf>ONE</bf> of two things:
766 <enum>
767 <item> Set the Samba configuration option 'security = user' and implement all of the stuff detailed in <url url="ftp://samba.org/pub/samba/docs/ENCRYPTION.txt" name="ENCRYPTION.txt">.
768 <item> Follow Microsoft's directions for setting your NT box to allow plain text passwords. see <url url="http://www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/q166/7/30.htm" name="Knowledge Base Article Q166730">
769 </enum>
771 <sect>Specific client application problems<p> <label id="client_problems">
773 <sect1>MS Office Setup reports "Cannot change properties of '\MSOFFICE\SETUP.INI'"<p> <label id="cant_change_properties">
774 When installing MS Office on a Samba drive for which you have admin
775 user permissions, ie. admin users = username, you will find the
776 setup program unable to complete the installation.
778 To get around this problem, do the installation without admin user
779 permissions The problem is that MS Office Setup checks that a file is
780 rdonly by trying to open it for writing.
782 Admin users can always open a file for writing, as they run as root.
783 You just have to install as a non-admin user and then use "chown -R"
784 to fix the owner.
786 <sect>Miscellaneous<p> <label id="miscellaneous">
787 <sect1>Is Samba Year 2000 compliant?<p><label id="Year2000Compliant">
788 The CIFS protocol that Samba implements
789 negotiates times in various formats, all of which
790 are able to cope with dates beyond 2000.
792 </article>