Linux® for Dummies®, 9th Edition

Chapter 21. Ten Steps to Setting Up a Samba Server

In This Chapter

• Introducing Samba

• Making a file server

• Troubleshooting

	There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other.
	--J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 1997

Quite possibly the biggest thing in local networking is file sharing. The sharing of files is a necessity in the business world, but it can also come in handy in the home network as well. Having a common place for everyone in the house to place pictures, music, or documents makes using floppies and flash drives almost obsolete.

There's no doubt that the Microsoft network environment is the most popular file-sharing system available. Any Microsoft Windows computers can connect together to share folders with one another. But just because you decided to use Linux doesn't mean you're left out in the cold. In this chapter, we walk you through the steps necessary to create your own file server on your home network that can be accessed from any Microsoft or Linux device on your network.

Dancing the Samba

Making your Linux computer talk with Microsoft Windows workstations and servers requires a special software package. Microsoft uses a proprietary (secret) network protocol to communicate between Windows devices on a network.

Fortunately, some enterprising open-source enthusiasts worked to reverse-engineer the Microsoft networking protocols and produced software to duplicate them. The result of this effort is the open-source package called ...