rane 05/10/09 11:26:57 Added: xml/htdocs/doc/en/articles samba-p1.xml Log: first article from #106233, disclaimers test
Revision Changes Path 1.1 xml/htdocs/doc/en/articles/samba-p1.xml file : http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/xml/htdocs/doc/en/articles/samba-p1.xml?rev=1.1&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup&cvsroot=gentoo plain: http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/xml/htdocs/doc/en/articles/samba-p1.xml?rev=1.1&content-type=text/plain&cvsroot=gentoo Index: samba-p1.xml =================================================================== <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd"> <!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/articles/samba-p1.xml,v 1.1 2005/10/09 11:26:57 rane Exp $ --> <guide link="/doc/en/articles/samba-p1.xml" disclaimer="articles"> <title>Introduction to Samba, Part 1</title> <author title="Author"> <mail link="[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Daniel Robbins</mail> </author> <!-- <author title="Editor"> <mail link="[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Joshua Saddler</mail> </author> --> <abstract> Samba is an incredible tool for anyone who uses both Unix and Windows. By implementing the SMB/CIFS protocol for Unix, Samba allows Unix systems to share their resources with standard Windows clients. In this introductory article, Daniel Robbins introduces you to what Samba can do. The focus will be on key concepts. (He'll step you through the setup process in his next article.) By the end of this article, you'll have a good understanding of what Samba does, and how it goes about doing it. </abstract> <!-- The original version of this article was first published on IBM developerWorks, and is property of Westtech Information Services. This document is an updated version of the original article, and contains various improvements made by the Gentoo Linux Documentation team --> <version>1.0</version> <date>2005-10-06</date> <chapter> <title>Key concepts</title> <section> <title>Show me Samba</title> <body> <p> First, I'm going to show you a bunch of screenshots from one of my Windows NT boxes named kompressor. These screenshots demonstrate what a fully-configured Samba system looks like from the Windows side. They'll give you a real-world grasp of what Samba can do. </p> <p> I currently have three machines set up on my internal LAN: </p> <ul> <li><b>ntbox</b> (a Windows NT Workstation)</li> <li><b>freebox</b> (a FreeBSD server)</li> <li> <b>kompressor</b> (the Windows NT Workstation that I use as my primary desktop) </li> </ul> <p> In this environment, I use Samba extensively to share files, print, and even run Windows applications directly from freebox (Unix). Here's a screenshot showing the contents of kompressor's Network Neighborhood: </p> <figure link="/images/docs/l-samba-1.gif" caption="kompressor's Network Neighborhood"/> <p> As you can see, both ntbox and kompressor are visible, which is no surprise since they are both NT Workstations. What is rather unusual, however, is the fact that I can see freebox as well. Because freebox is running Samba, I can see it under Network Neighborhood on every Windows machinethat is part of my "GENTOO" Windows workgroup. </p> <p> Now it's time to take a look at what's "inside" freebox. The following window pops up after double-clicking on the freebox icon: </p> <figure link="/images/docs/l-samba-2.gif" caption="SMB/CIFS shares on freebox"/> <p> In this window you can see a bunch of what are called "shares". More specifically, they're called SMB/CIFS shares and contain parts of freebox's file system that are accessible through the network. </p> <note> I should mention that SMB stands for Server Message Block, the original name for the protocol used to share files on Windows. CIFS stands for the Common Internet File System, Microsoft's new acronym describing the more recent version of this protocol. </note> <p> On freebox, Samba has been specifically configured to create only those particular shares that you see above. The drobbins share contains the contents of my home directory. I like to store all my files on freebox (under Unix) to keep things centralized and easy to manage. One of the wonderful things about Samba is that it allows administrators to centralize the storage of user files rather than providing each user with two separate file locations for Windows and Unix. </p> </body> </section> <section> <title>Samba printing</title> <body> <p> In addition to standard shares (which act as virtual directories), you can also see a printer share called nec. Another really great feature of Samba is that you can share printers the same way you can from any Windows machine. Nec is my NEC SuperScript 870 laser printer, which is hooked up to freebox and set up as a standard Unix lpd-based printer. Samba allows this printer to be used by Windows clients just like a standard Windows network printer would. </p> <p> You may be wondering how the printer driver situation is handled since the printer is running under Unix. Good question. On freebox, nec is set up as a standard, parallel port-based printer running in "raw" mode. In other words, any print jobs sent to nec are handed directly to the printer as is, without any filtering or data massaging. </p> <p> On kompressor, nec is configured as an NEC SuperScript 870 network printer. When I print to it, the local NT printer driver generates the appropriate binary data for nec, which is then automatically spooled over the network to Samba running on freebox. Samba then automatically inserts this data untouched into nec's queue, and my printer begins printing the job. </p> <p> I should note that unfortunately my NEC SuperScript 870 is not a Postscript printer; it uses Adobe's proprietary PrintGear technology. While my printer is not fully supported under Unix, it still works perfectly when printing from Windows (this is because all the printer-specific data is generated on the Windows side, using the Windows driver). Ironically, since GhostScript (a freely-available PostScript-compatible interpreter available for Unix) does not know how to produce PrintGear output, I can only print plain ASCII text or 300 dpi PCL4-based documents from the Unix side; but from the Windows side, the Windows NT driver allows me to print at a full 600 dpi. I don't find this cumbersome at the moment because I do most of my printing from Windows. Although in the future it would be nice to have a printer that has Postscript built-in so that I can use the printer's full functionality from Unix as well. </p> </body> </section> <section> <title>Samba shares</title> <body> <p> OK, now it's time to move on to the next screen shot. This one illustrates the contents of the drobbins share on freebox, which is configured to share my Unix home directory. All the files listed in the window actually reside on freebox but are directly accessible from my Windows NT client machines. Being able to integrate Windows and Unix is wonderful stuff! </p> <figure link="/images/docs/l-samba-3.gif" caption="My home directory on freebox, accessed from kompressor"/> </body> </section> <section> <title>Understanding Samba</title> <body> <p> To show you more about how Samba works internally, I'm going to give you a very simplified explanation of what happened behind the scenes when I poked around in the Network Neighborhood. I should first explain something about my current Windows session. Since I am running Windows NT Workstation, I had to log in to gain access to the machine. For this NT session I logged in to the local machine with the username "Administrator" and the password "mypass". If I were running Windows 95 or 98, the standard Windows networking drivers would have asked me for a username or password as well. Under Windows 95 and 98, this password isn't really used to determine who can access the local machine; rather, it is cached and used to connect to network resources. </p> <p> Of course, Windows NT is extremely secure compared to Windows 95 and 98 and will not allow you to use the machine unless you supply a valid username and password. After kompressor validated my username and password against its local security database, it allowed me to begin using Windows. Kompressor will also use my username and password to try to automatically authenticate itself when I connect to password-protected network resources. </p> </body> </section> -- [email protected] mailing list
