SAMBA is a collection of NETBIOS programs that implements the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol on top of TCP/IP

SMB is native networking protocol of Microsoft Windows

SAMBA implements both the SMB and Network Control Block (NCB) layers in the Windows network model, providing both client and server applications

Therefore, SAMBA is the glue that makes transparent integration b/t Linux/UNIX systems and Windows networking

With nmbd component of SAMBA, SAMBA can register its names on thenetwork and look up other names.

With nmblookup utility, Linux canquery the Windows network for a name & get the address(es) associcated with that name.

In Linux, the smbclient utility is for Linux to get and put files to and from Windows shares. It can also print to s ashared Windows printer.

smbtar & smbprint employs smbclient in their scripts too. smbfs & smbwrapper provide methods for Linux to access Windows file system shares in a manner consistent with the file system model of UNIX.

On the other hand, through SAMBA, Linux is able to provide the following services to Windows Networking: Name Service, Master Browser, WINS (Windows Internet Name Service), Extended Name Resolution, Domain Controller, Extened Authentication, File Sharing, Private Home Directories, User PRofiles, Print Sharing, and Messenger PopUp.

The following utilities are part of the SAMBA suite:

• smbd SAMBA daemon. It is the deamon to activate the services from Linux
• nmbd NetBIOS or IP darmon. It transforms the Linux box into a NetBIOS client for MS-Windows
• nmblookup Check for any NetBIOS or Windows XP program
• smbclient A client program for Linux to use a MS-Windows system
• smbstatus Show the actual status of connections b/t Linux and Windows
• smbadduser
• smb.conf
• smbmount
• smbtar Allow users to backup Windows machine over network
• smbumount Allow users to umount the remote MS-Windows volumes using Linux "umount" command

Initial Setting:

There are two systems set with the following assumptions:

• A computer MyWin runs MS Windows and the name of the computer is "MyWin" with IP addr 192.168.A.B connected to CKCGROUP workgroup
• A computer MyLinx runs Fedora Core Linux without runnning X-Server. The IP addr 192.168.A.C
• Both computers are in the 192.168.A.0 networks and the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 A is any integer b/t 0-255. B and C are any integers between 1-254

Installation of samba in Linux machines

Step 1

rpm -qa | grep samba

Ref: http://www.rpmfind.net - check package function