(!) [Brian] You need to configure directories that are shared in your
     systems smb.conf. You will want to read the smb.conf files on your system,
     both the running one (often found in /etc/samba/smb.conf) as well as any
     example smb.conf files that are found with the Samba documentation. And of
     course,

     $ man smb.conf

     (!) [John] As with most aspects of unix-like OS's, there is more than one
     way to configure samba. In fact samba comes with a utility called 'swat',
     but I've never used it, so I can't really say much about it. However, most
     Linux distros these days do a pretty decent job of providing a template
     configuration file that you can edit to add / change what you need without
     too much work. You will need to have a text editor installed, and know how
     to use it.

     Depending on the distro that you have, the samba configuration file will
     likely be found as either /etc/smb.conf or /etc/samba/smb.conf. "locate
     smb.conf" might be of use to you, assuming that the "updatedb" utility has
     been run on your system. To run the following command(s) and edit the
     samba configuration, will need to login as root.

     Usually, to get samba to allow connections from the outside world, you
     need to add the user and password manually, using the utility samba
     provides. To add a new user account, e.g., "john", type "smbpasswd -a
     john". The "-a" is for "add". "man smbpasswd" for details. You will be
     prompted for the password. If you duplicate the same username and password
     as you use on the windoze side, then you won't be prompted for a username
     and password when you want to access a samba share.

     You  designate  a folder share by entering some parameters into the
     smb.conf. For example. lets say that I have a dual-boot machine, and I
     mount the 'blows partition under /dosC. I could add a stanza to smb.conf
     such as the following:

[dosc]
    comment = W2k - vfat
    browseable = yes
    read only = Yes
    path = /dosC
    valid users = john
    guest ok = no
    printable = no

     Samba gives a fine degree of control by providing lots of parameters. Any
     parameters not specified for a share assume defaults which samba will
     provide. Usually the defaults for a share are such that you won't need to
     provide more than a handful of parameters. "man smb.conf" will give you
     lots of info about them. One thing perhaps worth noting is that many of
     the parameters have one or more synonomous "twin" parameters, so there
     aren't quite as many as there may seem at first, as there are "duplicates"

     After making changes to smb.conf, it may be expedient to restart the smb
     daemon. There are actually two daemons, but they might both be handled in
     just one init script.

/etc/init.d/smb restart

     and

/etc/init.d/nmb restart

     should suffice in any case.

     That will hopefully be enough to get you started. There's lots of info out
     there on the 'net about samba too. Google is your friend.

     To share a folder using Samba in Linux you need to edit the smb.conf file.
     On my computer it is located in the /etc/samba folder.

     You  need  to  add  the following lines to the file for each of the
     directories you want to share:

[ShareName]
         writeable = yes
         valid users = suramya
         user = suramya
         path = /home/suramya
         write list = suramya

     The path is the directory you want to share. ShareName is the name you
     want to call it. Valid users tells the system which users are allowed to
     access this share. To create a readonly share remove the writable=yes tag.

     Use the smbpasswd command to set the user password for samba share. There
     is a way to have it sync the password with the linux password file but I
     could never get that to work
     _________________________________________________________________

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             Published in issue 112 of Linux Gazette March 2005

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   Published in Issue 112 of Linux Gazette, March 2005

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