NT Server, Unix Client, SAMBA

Factual Questions
1

First, allow me to say that I am fairly UNIX ignorant, and I have tried to research this but I think that my ignorance is impeding me. Yep, I’m being lazy as I’m sure if I spent more time researching SAMBA and learning UNIX I would be able to answer this myself. I’m just hoping that someone knows the answer to this question without doing any research themselves and can prevent me from wasting a bunch of my time if I’m going down the wrong path.

I have the need for Unix boxes to be able to mount a directory on an NT4.0 server. I think SAMBA will allow me to do this. The documentation I have read seems to only talk about Windows boxes being able to access files on Unix boxes. The connection is bi-drectional isn’t it? Does SAMBA run solel on the Unix box or is there a piece that has to be installed on the NY box as well?

Thanks in advance.

2

The way I understand it is that Samba is the Unix version of Microsoft’s SMB (server message block) protocol. I think you can get a Samba server and a Samba client for a Unix box. The Samba client will allow the Unix box to see shares on a Windows box. A Samba server will allow a Unix box to share things on a Windows network.

I think, however, that the protocol used to mount a drive in Unix is the NFS (?) protocol. So you would probably need to install an NFS server on the Windows box to correctly mount the drive. I’m sure someone with a much better idea will be along soon.

3

You don’t need NFS, just Samba on the Unix box. Nothing new is required on the NT box.

I can’t remember the exact syntax, but it’s something like

smbclient //servername/folder /mnt/windowstuff

or something like that. The Samba docs explain all, and you can pop that (or rather the correct version :slight_smile: ) into /etc/fstab so it mounts on boot.

Although it’s been a while since I’ve used it, I rememeber it wasn’t very complicated.

4

Thanks! I will continue down this path then.

5

Urgh. I should have checked before I posted.

The smbclient line I gave is ridiculously oversimplified, but the basic concept is the same, using smbmount.

Anyway, the document you want is called the SMB HOWTO and you can get it at http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/SMB-HOWTO.html (or your local Linux Documentation Project mirror).

Section 8 details Accessing an SMB Share With Linux Machines. I know you didn’t specify Linux, but it’ll be the same syntax exactly for the Samba commands, and I’m sure you’ll be able to find out any idiosyncrasies with your version of mount.

6

smbclient(1) provides ftp-like access to SMB servers. I know that with Linux you need a kernel driver for “smbfs” to actually mount an SMB share (which is included in the standard kernel distribution). I’m not sure how (or if) this works on other Unices.