Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition

Chapter 47. Connecting to MS Windows

Building Bridges

Too often, it seems, the discussion of operating systems devolves into accusations, recriminations, and hurt feelings. However, the reality of a heterogeneous computing environment makes cooperation among the various operating systems critically important. There are a number of ways that Unix machines can interact with and partipate in Windows networks. Many of those connections work in reverse, too, so that Windows users can begin to experience Unix without abandoning their preferred desktop. Polemics aside, operating systems are only a means to an end that is defined by your business. Fortunately, interoperability is becoming increasingly easier. The following sections will show some of the options available to you.

— JJ

Installing and Configuring Samba

Go to http://examples.oreilly.com/upt3 for more information on: Samba

Samba is an open source project that implements the Session Message Block (SMB) protocol, which is the core networking language of the Microsoft Windows family. Of course, the dominant networking protocol in Unix is the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). The challenge of the Samba project is to map SMB traffic onto TCP/IP networks. This is no small feat since SMB was designed for small, nonsegmented networks. Because all SMB network machine names exist in one global namespace, the practical ...