What is Samba

Samba is a UNIX tool that enables you to access UNIX files from a PC running Windows 2000/XP. It runs on almost every CSE Lab-managed UNIX host.

Samba also allows ftp-like access to PC fileservers from UNIX hosts.

Accessing Files on CSE Lab UNIX Servers from a Windows PC

A Microsoft Distributed file system (Dfs) server called ntdfs provides "one stop shopping" for most Windows and UNIX shares you need to access. On most systems all of these files are found under the O: drive, as described in Microsoft Dfs.

Accessing your UNIX Home Directory from a PC

To access your UNIX home directory from a PC running Windows 2000/XP you must first know which home directory you want to access. Some people have only one, e.g. on the instructional Linux systems, normally called `/homes/iws/username'. Research users may have several: a "main" research home directory called `/homes/gws/username' on one of the lab managed hosts (e.g. barb), and perhaps a different one when logging into project machines such as the graphics (grail) hosts.

Let's assume your user name is "jouser" and you want to access your "gws" home directory.

You can use a Windows "UNC"(1) name and access it as `\\ntdfs\cs\unix\homes\gws\jouser'.

Or, you can "map" it to a drive letter. To do this choose the `map network drive' button on the menu bar of one of the PC file manager or explorer tools, or use the net command in an MSDOS window. In the example above, jouser would map her home directory using the UNC path given above, e.g. using the net command:(2)

net use H: \\ntdfs\cs\unix\homes\gws\jouser

Or, you can use the default mapping of `\\ntdfs\cs' to `O:' (or map `\\ntdfs\cs' to `O:') and access your home directory as `O:\unix\homes\gws\jouser'.

Important notes:

In order to access a UNIX file from Windows you need to have an account on a UNIX server that can access that file. So, for example, if you want to access `O:\cse\www\' the remote host, in this case www, needs to see an entry for you in its passwd file. (3) Actually www is not a good example, since all faculty, staff, and grads have passwd entries on the web server. However, you should be aware of this if someday you are asked to look at something on, say, one of the Grail laboratory's research servers on which you do not have an account.
Samba on CSE UNIX hosts is configured to grant access based on your Windows username and password, not your UNIX credentials. The research UNIX hosts grant access based on your authentication in the CSERESEARCH domain; the instructional UNIX hosts (fiji, tahiti, etc.) grant access based on your authentication in the CSEPCLAB domain. Thus, in most cases you will not be prompted for a password when you access a Samba share.(4)

Accessing PC Shared Directories from UNIX using smbclient

WARNING: smbclient Is a Crude Kludge

Smbclient is an extremely crude tool. Here is how smbclient is broken and will frustrate you:

You cannot specify anything other than an explicit share, e.g. you cannot specify \\ifilesrv2\students1\jouser on the command line. The file share you can specify is \\ifilesrv2\students1.

Smbclient is not Dfs-aware. This means you can specify \\ntdfs\cs as a share, but when you attempt to drill down past the so-called Dfs "junction points" you will not get anywhere. In the following example this is illustrated. You cannot get to //ntdfs/cs/cse/www using smbclient.

% smbclient //ntdfs/cs Password: Domain=[CSERESEARCH] OS=[Windows Server 2003 3790] Server=[Windows Server 2003 5.2] smb: \> ls . D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:17:54 2003 .. D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:17:54 2003 bu DH 0 Sat Oct 18 10:06:08 2003 cse D 0 Thu Oct 28 10:25:56 2004 nt D 0 Wed Feb 25 15:28:09 2004 sources D 0 Wed Sep 15 12:54:29 2004 unix D 0 Thu Oct 16 17:04:57 2003 34522 blocks of size 1048576. 29260 blocks available smb: \> cd cse smb: \cse\> ls . D 0 Thu Oct 28 10:25:56 2004 .. D 0 Thu Oct 28 10:25:56 2004 courses D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:55 2003 distiller D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:56 2003 ftp D 0 Thu Apr 22 14:22:18 2004 groups D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:56 2003 lab D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:56 2003 labrec D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:56 2003 mailing-lists D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:57 2003 office D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:57 2003 student-affairs D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:57 2003 ugrad-org D 0 Sat Oct 2 12:25:46 2004 www D 0 Thu Oct 28 10:25:56 2004 www2 D 0 Thu Oct 16 16:16:58 2003 34522 blocks of size 1048576. 29260 blocks available smb: \cse\> cd www smb: \cse\www\> ls NT_STATUS_PATH_NOT_COVERED listing \cse\www\\* 34522 blocks of size 1048576. 29260 blocks available smb: \cse\www\> q

Using smbclient

Smbclient(5), can be used for ftp-like or tar-like access to PC shares. For example, to access the \\ifilesrv2\students1 share in the CSEPCLAB domain, enter

smbclient '\\ifilesrv2\students1' -W csepclab
To see what services are offered by ifilesrv1, enter

smbclient -L ifilesrv1 -W csepclab
For more information, see the smbclient man page.

Using csepclab-smbclient to rename or reduce your CSEPCLAB Windows profile

There's a special script, /cse/lab/bin/csepclab-smbclient, that will connect automatically to your instructional (CSEPCLAB) Windows home directory share from your instructional Linux account on one of the "attu" servers. There are no parameters to this script; you do not have to know the exact server and share that contains your Windows home directory.

Important: you should not be logged into your Windows account when you do this.

When you run the script you will be prompted for your CSEPCLAB password (NOT your UNIX password!). Once you enter that password, you will need to use the smbclient `cd' command to get into your Windows home directory and profile. Once there, other commands allow you to delete or rename files; refer to the smbclient man page for details.

To completely get rid of your current (possibly corrupted) profile, rename the profile folder.

Here is an example of moving a possibly buggy profile out of the way by renaming it:

attu2% /cse/lab/bin/csepclab-smbclient Password: Domain=[CSEPCLAB] OS=[Windows Server 2003 3790] Server=[Windows Server 2003 5.2] smb: \> cd jouser smb: \jouser\> ls . D 0 Mon Apr 26 15:23:54 2004 .. D 0 Mon Apr 26 15:23:54 2004 profile D 0 Tue Apr 27 16:37:57 2004 WINDOWS D 0 Mon Apr 26 15:23:54 2004 64000 blocks of size 8192. 63875 blocks available smb: \jouser\> rename profile profile.old smb: \jouser\> cd profile.old smb: \jouser\profile.old\> ls . D 0 Tue Apr 27 16:37:57 2004 .. D 0 Tue Apr 27 16:37:57 2004 Application Data DHR 0 Mon Apr 26 15:24:08 2004 Cookies DS 0 Tue Dec 23 14:08:26 2003 Desktop D 0 Tue Dec 23 05:59:47 2003 Favorites DR 0 Tue Apr 27 14:45:33 2004 My Documents DR 0 Mon Apr 26 15:24:11 2004 NetHood DH 0 Tue Dec 23 05:59:47 2003 NTUSER.DAT H 786432 Tue Apr 27 16:37:57 2004 ntuser.dat.LOG H 1024 Tue Apr 27 16:37:57 2004 ntuser.ini H 352 Tue Apr 27 16:37:57 2004 ntuser.pol HSR 1698 Tue Apr 27 14:45:33 2004 PrintHood DH 0 Tue Dec 23 05:59:47 2003 Recent DHR 0 Mon Apr 26 15:24:11 2004 SendTo DHR 0 Mon Apr 26 15:24:08 2004 Start Menu DR 0 Tue Dec 23 05:59:47 2003 Sti_Trace.log 0 Tue Dec 23 06:03:29 2003 Templates DH 0 Tue Dec 23 05:59:47 2003 64000 blocks of size 8192. 63875 blocks available smb: \jouser\profile.old\> q attu2%

Footnotes

(1)

One definition of "UNC (Universal Naming Convention) name" (from the Windows 2000 on-line Glossary) reads as follows: "A full Windows 2000 name of a resource on a network. It conforms to the \\servername\sharename syntax, where servername is the server's name and sharename is the name of the shared resource. UNC names of directories or files can also include the directory path under the share name with the following syntax: \\servername\sharename\directory\filename."