Chapter 5
Doing the Samba Dance
In This Chapter
Finding out what Samba does
Installing Samba on your Linux computer
Configuring Samba the easy way
Tweaking the smb.conf file
Using the Samba client
Until now, you probably thought of Samba as a Brazilian dance with intricate steps and fun rhythms. In the Linux world, however, Samba refers to a file- and printer-sharing program that allows Linux to mimic a Windows file and print server so that Windows computers can use shared Linux directories and printers. If you want to use Linux as a file or print server in a Windows network, you need to know how to dance the Samba.
Understanding Samba
Because Linux and Windows have such different file systems, you can’t create a Linux file server simply by granting Windows users access to Linux directories. Windows client computers wouldn’t be able to access files in the Linux directories. Too many differences exist between the file systems. For example:
- Linux filenames are case sensitive, ...
Get Networking All-in-One For Dummies now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
