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<TITLE> Samba FAQ: General Information</TITLE>
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<H2><A NAME="s1">1. General Information</A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="general_info"></A>
</P>
<P>All about Samba - what it is, how to get it, related sources of
information, how to understand the version numbering scheme, pizza
details</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.1">1.1 What is Samba? </A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="introduction"></A>
</P>
<P>Samba is a suite of programs which work together to allow clients to
access to a server's filespace and printers via the SMB (Server
Message Block) protocol. Initially written for Unix, Samba now also
runs on Netware, OS/2 and VMS.</P>
<P>In practice, this means that you can redirect disks and printers to
Unix disks and printers from Lan Manager clients, Windows for
Workgroups 3.11 clients, Windows NT clients, Linux clients and OS/2
clients. There is also a generic Unix client program supplied as part
of the suite which allows Unix users to use an ftp-like interface to
access filespace and printers on any other SMB servers. This gives the
capability for these operating systems to behave much like a LAN
Server or Windows NT Server machine, only with added functionality and
flexibility designed to make life easier for administrators.</P>
<P>The components of the suite are (in summary):</P>
<P>
<UL>
<LI> smbd, the SMB server. This handles actual connections from
clients, doing all the file, permission and username work
</LI>
<LI>nmbd, the Netbios name server, which helps clients locate
servers, doing the browsing work and managing domains as this
capability is being built into Samba
</LI>
<LI>smbclient, the Unix-hosted client program
</LI>
<LI>smbrun, a little 'glue' program to help the server run external
programs
</LI>
<LI>testprns, a program to test server access to printers
</LI>
<LI>testparms, a program to test the Samba configuration file for
correctness
</LI>
<LI>smb.conf, the Samba configuration file
</LI>
<LI> smbprint, a sample script to allow a Unix host to use smbclient
to print to an SMB server
</LI>
<LI> documentation! DON'T neglect to read it - you will save a great
deal of time!
</LI>
</UL>
</P>
<P>The suite is supplied with full source (of course!) and is GPLed.</P>
<P>The primary creator of the Samba suite is Andrew Tridgell. Later
versions incorporate much effort by many net.helpers. The man pages
and this FAQ were originally written by Karl Auer.</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.2">1.2 What is the current version of Samba? </A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="current_version"></A>
</P>
<P>At time of writing, the current version was 1.9.16. If you want to be
sure check the bottom of the change-log file.
<A HREF="ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/samba/alpha/change-log">ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/samba/alpha/change-log</A></P>
<P>For more information see
<A HREF="#version_nums">What do the version numbers mean?</A></P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.3">1.3 Where can I get it? </A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="where"></A>
</P>
<P>The Samba suite is available via anonymous ftp from
samba.anu.edu.au. The latest and greatest versions of the suite are in
the directory:</P>
<P>/pub/samba/</P>
<P>Development (read "alpha") versions, which are NOT necessarily stable
and which do NOT necessarily have accurate documentation, are
available in the directory:</P>
<P>/pub/samba/alpha</P>
<P>Note that binaries are NOT included in any of the above. Samba is
distributed ONLY in source form, though binaries may be available from
other sites. Recent versions of some Linux distributions, for example,
do contain Samba binaries for that platform.</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.4">1.4 What do the version numbers mean? </A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="version_nums"></A>
</P>
<P>It is not recommended that you run a version of Samba with the word
"alpha" in its name unless you know what you are doing and are willing
to do some debugging. Many, many people just get the latest
recommended stable release version and are happy. If you are brave, by
all means take the plunge and help with the testing and development -
but don't install it on your departmental server. Samba is typically
very stable and safe, and this is mostly due to the policy of many
public releases.</P>
<P>How the scheme works:</P>
<P>1) when major changes are made the version number is increased. For
example, the transition from 1.9.15 to 1.9.16. However, this version
number will not appear immediately and people should continue to use
1.9.15 for production systems (see next point.)</P>
<P>2) just after major changes are made the software is considered
unstable, and a series of alpha releases are distributed, for example
1.9.16alpha1. These are for testing by those who know what they are
doing. The "alpha" in the filename will hopefully scare off those who
are just looking for the latest version to install.</P>
<P>3) when Andrew thinks that the alphas have stabilised to the point
where he would recommend new users install it, he renames it to the
same version number without the alpha, for example 1.9.16.</P>
<P>4) inevitably bugs are found in the "stable" releases and minor patch
levels are released which give us the pXX series, for example
1.9.16p2.</P>
<P>So the progression goes:</P>
<P>1.9.15p7 (production)
1.9.15p8 (production)
1.9.16alpha1 (test sites only)
:
1.9.16alpha20 (test sites only)
1.9.16 (production)
1.9.16p1 (production)</P>
<P>The above system means that whenever someone looks at the samba ftp
site they will be able to grab the highest numbered release without an
alpha in the name and be sure of getting the current recommended
version.</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.5">1.5 What platforms are supported? </A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="platforms"></A>
</P>
<P>Many different platforms have run Samba successfully. The platforms
most widely used and thus best tested are Linux and SunOS.</P>
<P>At time of writing, the Makefile claimed support for:</P>
<P>* SunOS
* Linux with shadow passwords
* Linux without shadow passwords
* SOLARIS
* SOLARIS 2.2 and above (aka SunOS 5)
* SVR4
* ULTRIX
* OSF1 (alpha only)
* OSF1 with NIS and Fast Crypt (alpha only)
* OSF1 V2.0 Enhanced Security (alpha only)
* AIX
* BSDI
* NetBSD
* NetBSD 1.0
* SEQUENT
* HP-UX
* SGI
* SGI IRIX 4.x.x
* SGI IRIX 5.x.x
* FreeBSD
* NeXT 3.2 and above
* NeXT OS 2.x
* NeXT OS 3.0
* ISC SVR3V4 (POSIX mode)
* ISC SVR3V4 (iBCS2 mode)
* A/UX 3.0
* SCO with shadow passwords.
* SCO with shadow passwords, without YP.
* SCO with TCB passwords
* SCO 3.2v2 (ODT 1.1) with TCP passwords
* intergraph
* DGUX
* Apollo Domain/OS sr10.3 (BSD4.3)</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.6">1.6 How can I find out more about Samba? </A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="more"></A>
</P>
<P>There are two mailing lists devoted to discussion of Samba-related
matters. There is also the newsgroup, comp.protocols.smb, which has a
great deal of discussion on Samba. There is also a WWW site 'SAMBA Web
Pages' at http://samba.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/samba.html, under
which there is a comprehensive survey of Samba users. Another useful
resource is the hypertext archive of the Samba mailing list.</P>
<P>Send email to listproc@samba.anu.edu.au. Make sure the subject line is
blank, and include the following two lines in the body of the message:</P>
<P>subscribe samba Firstname Lastname
subscribe samba-announce Firstname Lastname</P>
<P>Obviously you should substitute YOUR first name for "Firstname" and
YOUR last name for "Lastname"! Try not to send any signature stuff, it
sometimes confuses the list processor.</P>
<P>The samba list is a digest list - every eight hours or so it
regurgitates a single message containing all the messages that have
been received by the list since the last time and sends a copy of this
message to all subscribers.</P>
<P>If you stop being interested in Samba, please send another email to
listproc@samba.anu.edu.au. Make sure the subject line is blank, and
include the following two lines in the body of the message:</P>
<P>unsubscribe samba
unsubscribe samba-announce</P>
<P>The From: line in your message MUST be the same address you used when
you subscribed.</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.7">1.7 Something's gone wrong - what should I do? </A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="wrong"></A>
</P>
<P><F>#</F> *** IMPORTANT! *** <F>#</F>
DO NOT post messages on mailing lists or in newsgroups until you have
carried out the first three steps given here!</P>
<P>Firstly, see if there are any likely looking entries in this FAQ! If
you have just installed Samba, have you run through the checklist in
DIAGNOSIS.txt? It can save you a lot of time and effort.</P>
<P>Secondly, read the man pages for smbd, nmbd and smb.conf, looking for
topics that relate to what you are trying to do.</P>
<P>Thirdly, if there is no obvious solution to hand, try to get a look at
the log files for smbd and/or nmbd for the period during which you
were having problems. You may need to reconfigure the servers to
provide more extensive debugging information - usually level 2 or
level 3 provide ample debugging info. Inspect these logs closely,
looking particularly for the string "Error:".</P>
<P>Fourthly, if you still haven't got anywhere, ask the mailing list or
newsgroup. In general nobody minds answering questions provided you
have followed the preceding steps. It might be a good idea to scan the
archives of the mailing list, which are available through the Samba
web site described in the previous
section.</P>
<P>If you successfully solve a problem, please mail the FAQ maintainer a
succinct description of the symptom, the problem and the solution, so
I can incorporate it in the next version.</P>
<P>If you make changes to the source code, _please_ submit these patches
so that everyone else gets the benefit of your work. This is one of
the most important aspects to the maintainence of Samba. Send all
patches to samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au, not Andrew Tridgell or any
other individual and not the samba team mailing list.</P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.8">1.8 Pizza supply details </A></H2>
<P>
<A NAME="pizza"></A>
</P>
<P>Those who have registered in the Samba survey as "Pizza Factory" will
already know this, but the rest may need some help. Andrew doesn't ask
for payment, but he does appreciate it when people give him
pizza. This calls for a little organisation when the pizza donor is
twenty thousand kilometres away, but it has been done.</P>
<P>Method 1: Ring up your local branch of an international pizza chain
and see if they honour their vouchers internationally. Pizza Hut do,
which is how the entire Canberra Linux Users Group got to eat pizza
one night, courtesy of someone in the US</P>
<P>Method 2: Ring up a local pizza shop in Canberra and quote a credit
card number for a certain amount, and tell them that Andrew will be
collecting it (don't forget to tell him.) One kind soul from Germany
did this.</P>
<P>Method 3: Purchase a pizza voucher from your local pizza shop that has
no international affiliations and send it to Andrew. It is completely
useless but he can hang it on the wall next to the one he already has
from Germany :-)</P>
<P>Method 4: Air freight him a pizza with your favourite regional
flavours. It will probably get stuck in customs or torn apart by
hungry sniffer dogs but it will have been a noble gesture.</P>
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