Chapter 26. How to compile SAMBA

You can obtain the samba source from the samba website. To obtain a development version, you can download samba from CVS or using rsync.

26.1. Access Samba source code via CVS

26.1.1. Introduction

Samba is developed in an open environment. Developers use CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) to "checkin" (also known as "commit") new source code. Samba's various CVS branches can be accessed via anonymous CVS using the instructions detailed in this chapter.

This chapter is a modified version of the instructions found at http://samba.org/samba/cvs.html

26.1.2. CVS Access to samba.org

The machine samba.org runs a publicly accessible CVS repository for access to the source code of several packages, including samba, rsync and jitterbug. There are two main ways of accessing the CVS server on this host.

26.1.2.1. Access via CVSweb

You can access the source code via your favourite WWW browser. This allows you to access the contents of individual files in the repository and also to look at the revision history and commit logs of individual files. You can also ask for a diff listing between any two versions on the repository.

Use the URL : http://samba.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb

26.1.2.2. Access via cvs

You can also access the source code via a normal cvs client. This gives you much more control over you can do with the repository and allows you to checkout whole source trees and keep them up to date via normal cvs commands. This is the preferred method of access if you are a developer and not just a casual browser.

To download the latest cvs source code, point your browser at the URL : http://www.cyclic.com/. and click on the 'How to get cvs' link. CVS is free software under the GNU GPL (as is Samba). Note that there are several graphical CVS clients which provide a graphical interface to the sometimes mundane CVS commands. Links to theses clients are also available from http://www.cyclic.com.

To gain access via anonymous cvs use the following steps. For this example it is assumed that you want a copy of the samba source code. For the other source code repositories on this system just substitute the correct package name

  1. Install a recent copy of cvs. All you really need is a copy of the cvs client binary.

  2. Run the command

    cvs -d :pserver:cvs@samba.org:/cvsroot login

    When it asks you for a password type cvs.

  3. Run the command

    cvs -d :pserver:cvs@samba.org:/cvsroot co samba

    This will create a directory called samba containing the latest samba source code (i.e. the HEAD tagged cvs branch). This currently corresponds to the 3.0 development tree.

    CVS branches other HEAD can be obtained by using the -r and defining a tag name. A list of branch tag names can be found on the "Development" page of the samba web site. A common request is to obtain the latest 2.2 release code. This could be done by using the following command.

    cvs -d :pserver:cvs@samba.org:/cvsroot co -r SAMBA_2_2 samba

  4. Whenever you want to merge in the latest code changes use the following command from within the samba directory:

    cvs update -d -P

26.2. Accessing the samba sources via rsync and ftp

pserver.samba.org also exports unpacked copies of most parts of the CVS tree at ftp://pserver.samba.org/pub/unpacked and also via anonymous rsync at rsync://pserver.samba.org/ftp/unpacked/. I recommend using rsync rather than ftp. See the rsync homepage for more info on rsync.

The disadvantage of the unpacked trees is that they do not support automatic merging of local changes like CVS does. rsync access is most convenient for an initial install.

26.3. Building the Binaries

To do this, first run the program ./configure in the source directory. This should automatically configure Samba for your operating system. If you have unusual needs then you may wish to run

root# ./configure --help

first to see what special options you can enable. Then executing

root# make

will create the binaries. Once it's successfully compiled you can use

root# make install

to install the binaries and manual pages. You can separately install the binaries and/or man pages using

root# make installbin

and

root# make installman

Note that if you are upgrading for a previous version of Samba you might like to know that the old versions of the binaries will be renamed with a ".old" extension. You can go back to the previous version with

root# make revert

if you find this version a disaster!

26.4. Starting the smbd and nmbd

You must choose to start smbd and nmbd either as daemons or from inetd. Don't try to do both! Either you can put them in inetd.conf and have them started on demand by inetd, or you can start them as daemons either from the command line or in /etc/rc.local. See the man pages for details on the command line options. Take particular care to read the bit about what user you need to be in order to start Samba. In many cases you must be root.

The main advantage of starting smbd and nmbd using the recommended daemon method is that they will respond slightly more quickly to an initial connection request.

26.4.1. Starting from inetd.conf

NOTE; The following will be different if you use NIS, NIS+ or LDAP to distribute services maps.

Look at your /etc/services. What is defined at port 139/tcp. If nothing is defined then add a line like this:

netbios-ssn 139/tcp

similarly for 137/udp you should have an entry like:

netbios-ns 137/udp

Next edit your /etc/inetd.conf and add two lines something like this:

		netbios-ssn stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd smbd 
		netbios-ns dgram udp wait root /usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd nmbd 
		

The exact syntax of /etc/inetd.conf varies between unixes. Look at the other entries in inetd.conf for a guide.

NOTE: Some unixes already have entries like netbios_ns (note the underscore) in /etc/services. You must either edit /etc/services or /etc/inetd.conf to make them consistent.

NOTE: On many systems you may need to use the "interfaces" option in smb.conf to specify the IP address and netmask of your interfaces. Run ifconfig as root if you don't know what the broadcast is for your net. nmbd tries to determine it at run time, but fails on some unixes. See the section on "testing nmbd" for a method of finding if you need to do this.

!!!WARNING!!! Many unixes only accept around 5 parameters on the command line in inetd.conf. This means you shouldn't use spaces between the options and arguments, or you should use a script, and start the script from inetd.

Restart inetd, perhaps just send it a HUP. If you have installed an earlier version of nmbd then you may need to kill nmbd as well.

26.4.2. Alternative: starting it as a daemon

To start the server as a daemon you should create a script something like this one, perhaps calling it startsmb.

		#!/bin/sh
		/usr/local/samba/bin/smbd -D 
		/usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd -D 
		

then make it executable with chmod +x startsmb

You can then run startsmb by hand or execute it from /etc/rc.local

To kill it send a kill signal to the processes nmbd and smbd.

NOTE: If you use the SVR4 style init system then you may like to look at the examples/svr4-startup script to make Samba fit into that system.