swat [-s smb config file] [-a]
This program is part of the Samba suite.
swat allows a Samba administrator to configure the complex
smb.conf file via a Web browser. In
addition, a swat configuration page has help links to all the
configurable options in the smb.conf file
allowing an administrator to easily look up the effects of any change.
swat can be run as a stand-alone daemon, from inetd,
or invoked via CGI from a Web server.
The file specified contains the configuration details required by the
smbd server. This is the file that swat will
modify. The information in this file includes server-specific
information such as what printcap file to use, as well as descriptions
of all the services that the server is to provide. See smb.conf
(5) for more information.
This option is only used if swat is running as it's own mini-web
server (see the INSTALLATION section below).
This option removes the need for authentication needed to modify the
smb.conf file. **THIS IS ONLY MEANT FOR
DEMOING SWAT AND MUST NOT BE SET IN NORMAL SYSTEMS** as it would
allow *ANYONE* to modify the smb.conf
file, thus giving them root access.
After you compile SWAT you need to run "make install" to install the
swat binary and the various help files and images. A default install
would put these in:
/usr/local/samba/bin/swat /usr/local/samba/swat/images/* /usr/local/samba/swat/help/*
You need to edit your /etc/inetd.conf and /etc/services to
enable SWAT to be launched via inetd. Note that swat can also
be launched via the cgi-bin mechanisms of a web server (such as
apache) and that is described below in the section RUNNING VIA
CGI-BIN.
In /etc/services you need to add a line like this:
swat 901/tcp
Note for NIS/YP users - you may need to rebuild the NIS service maps
rather than alter your local /etc/services file.
the choice of port number isn't really important except that it should
be less than 1024 and not currently used (using a number above 1024
presents an obscure security hole depending on the implementation
details of your inetd daemon).
In /etc/inetd.conf you should add a line like this:
swat stream tcp nowait.400 root /usr/local/samba/bin/swat swat
If you just want to see a demo of how swat works and don't want to be
able to actually change any Samba config via swat then you may chose
to change "root" to some other user that does not have permission
to write to smb.conf.
One you have edited /etc/services and /etc/inetd.conf you need
to send a HUP signal to inetd. To do this use "kill -1 PID" where
PID is the process ID of the inetd daemon.
To run swat via your web servers cgi-bin capability you need to
copy the swat binary to your cgi-bin directory. Note that you
should run swat either via inetd or via
cgi-bin but not both.
Then you need to create a swat/ directory in your web servers root
directory and copy the images/* and help/* files found in the
swat/ directory of your Samba source distribution into there so
that they are visible via the URL http://your.web.server/swat/
Next you need to make sure you modify your web servers authentication
to require a username/pssword for the URL
http://your.web.server/cgi-bin/swat. **Don't forget this
step!** If you do forget it then you will be allowing anyone to edit
your Samba configuration which would allow them to easily gain root
access on your machine.
After testing the authentication you need to change the ownership and
permissions on the swat binary. It should be owned by root wth the
setuid bit set. It should be ONLY executable by the user that the web
server runs as. Make sure you do this carefully!
for example, the following would be correct if the web server ran as
group "nobody".
-rws--x--- 1 root nobody
You must also realise that this means that any user who can run
programs as the "nobody" group can run swat and modify your
Samba config. Be sure to think about this!
To launch swat just run your favourite web browser and point it at
http://localhost:901/ or http://localhost/cgi-bin/swat/
depending on how you installed it.
Note that you can attach to swat from any IP connected machine but
connecting from a remote machine leaves your connection open to
password sniffing as passwords will be sent in the clear over the
wire.
If installed via inetd then you should be prompted for a
username/password when you connect. You will need to provide the
username "root" and the correct root password. More sophisticated
authentication options are planned for future versions of swat.
If installed via cgi-bin then you should receive whatever
authentication request you configured in your web server.
/etc/inetd.conf
If the server is to be run by the inetd meta-daemon, this file must
contain suitable startup information for the meta-daemon. See the
section RUNNING VIA INETD above.
/etc/services
If running the server via the meta-daemon inetd, this file must
contain a mapping of service name (eg., swat) to service port
(eg., 901) and protocol type (eg., tcp). See the section
RUNNING VIA INETD above.
/usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf
This is the default location of the smb.conf server configuration
file that swat edits. Other common places that systems install
this file are /usr/samba/lib/smb.conf and /etc/smb.conf.
This file describes all the services the server is to make available
to clients. See smb.conf (5) for more information.
swat will rewrite your smb.conf file. It
will rearrange the entries and delete all comments,
"include=" and
"copy=" options. If you have a
carefully crafted smb.conf then back it up
or don't use swat!
This man page is correct for version 2.0 of the Samba suite.
inetd (8), nmbd (8),
smb.conf (5).
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by
Andrew Tridgell (samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au). Samba is now developed
by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the
Linux kernel is developed.
The original Samba man pages were written by Karl Auer. The man page
sources were converted to YODL format (another excellent piece of Open
Source software, available at
ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/)
and updated for the Samba2.0 release by Jeremy Allison.
samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au.
See samba (7) to find out how to get a full
list of contributors and details on how to submit bug reports,
comments etc.