Using Samba, Second Edition

Chapter 3. Configuring Windows Clients

Configuring Windows to use your new Samba server is really quite simple. SMB is Microsoft’s native language for resource sharing on a local area network, so much of the installation and setup on the Windows client side have been taken care of already.

Windows Networking Concepts

Windows is different from Unix in many ways, including how it supports networking. Before we get into the hands-on task of clicking our way through the dialog boxes to configure each version of Windows, we need to provide you with a common foundation of networking technologies and concepts that apply to the entire family of Windows operating systems.

For each Windows version, these are the main issues we will be dealing with:

• Making sure required networking components are installed and bound to the network adapter

• Configuring networking with a valid IP address, netmask and gateway, and WINS and DNS name servers

• Assigning workgroup and computer names

• Setting the username(s) and password(s)

In addition, some minor issues involving communication and coordination between Windows and Unix are different among Windows versions.

One can go crazy thinking about the ways in which Unix is different from Windows, or the ways in which members of the Windows family are different from each other in underlying technology, behavior, or appearance. For now let’s just focus on their similarities and see if we can find some common ground.

Components

Unix systems historically have been monolithic ...