Using Samba, Second Edition

Starting the Samba Daemons

Two Samba processes, smbd and nmbd , need to be running for Samba to work correctly. There are three ways to start them:

• Manually

• Automatically, during system boot

• From inetd or xinetd

Starting the Daemons Manually

If you’re in a hurry, you can start the Samba daemons by hand. As root, simply enter the following commands:

# /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd -D
# /usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd -D

Samba will now be running on your system and is ready to accept connections. However, keep in mind that if either of the daemons exit for any reason (including system reboots), they will need to be restarted manually.

Automatic Startup

To have the Samba daemons started automatically when the system boots, you need to add the commands listed in the previous section to your standard Unix startup scripts. The exact method varies depending on the flavor of Unix you’re using.

BSD Unix

With a BSD-style Unix, you need to append the following code to the rc.local file, which is typically found in the /etc or /etc/rc.d directories:

if [ -x /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd]; then
    echo "Starting smbd..."
    /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd -D
    echo "Starting nmbd..."
    /usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd -D
fi

This code is very simple: it checks to see if the smbd file exists and has execute permissions, and if it does, it starts up both of the Samba daemons on system boot.

System V Unix

With System V, things can get a little more complex. Depending on your Unix version, you might be able to get away with making a simple ...