Book details of 'Using Samba'

Title	Using Samba
Author(s)	Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown
ISBN	1565924495
Language	English
Published	November 1999
Publisher	O'Reilly & Associates

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Reviewer amazon.com wrote:
Samba, the Server Message Block (SMB) server software that makes it relatively easy to integrate Unix or Linux servers into networks of Microsoft Windows workstations, has to date been mostly explained as an afterthought. Most often, it's appeared in the latter chapters of books about Linux. It deserves better, and the authors of Using Samba have delivered exactly that. This book documents Samba 2.0.4 fully (version 2.0.5, source and binary, appears on the companion CD-ROM), focusing on smbd, nmbd, the command-line tools, and Samba's newfound ability to integrate itself securely with Windows NT domains. Though it includes a bit of information on the SMB and Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocols that underlie Samba, the emphasis here is on setting up and configuring software. Explicit sections explain how to install Samba on a Unix/Linux system and how to set up Microsoft clients to communicate with the Samba machine. The authors pay lavish attention to the Samba configuration file, smb.conf, and explain exactly what settings you need to include in it to allow disk shares, network browsing, and integration with Windows domains. A highly useful reference that lists all Samba configuration options (along with their valid values, default values, and explanations) appears in an appendix.
Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
Server Message Block (SMB) is a protocol used for simple client-server networking. More importantly, however, it is the protocol used in Microsoft's basic Windows products. There are Windows clients for other protocols, such as NFS (Network File System), but these are not supplied with the operating system and must be purchased separately. As well, these add-on clients are not as tightly coupled with the Windows operating system and its functions. Samba is a UNIX server program using the SMB protocol. This allows UNIX administrators to set up file and print sharing on UNIX machines, for access and use by Windows PCs without specialized clients on all the workstations. Chapter one is an introduction to Samba and the basic SMB concepts. Compilation and installation of Samba on the UNIX server are covered in chapter two. Setup of Windows clients is dealt with in chapter three, as well as some header level information about the protocol itself. The material details configuration of Windows 9x and NT separately, because of the slight differences in menus and dialogue boxes. The instructions are quite detailed, even down to the information that the IP 192.168.x.x address range can be used for internal LANs, although more time is spent with the 9x versions than with NT. Most of the rest of the book is spent on configuration options for Samba. Chapter four provides an outline of the smb.conf file and the basic preference settings. Browsing (functions advertising and searching for resources) and advanced file sharing choices are given in chapter five. Security related settings are discussed in chapter six, along with some practical tips. Chapter seven looks at printing and name resolution, while miscellaneous functions are presented in chapter eight. Chapter nine outlines not just troubleshooting tools, but also detailed procedures. Appendices list information on the use of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), performance tuning, daemons and commands, as well as a command reference. The book is aimed at experienced UNIX administrators. The explanations of how Windows works will definitely be of help to these people. However, it is a bit of a pity that slightly more information wasn't included about UNIX for those not familiar with the system. While there certainly are good references for UNIX administration available (many of them coming from O'Reilly), it is arguably the case that the greater "market" for Samba is among those who administer Windows networks, and need the basic and reliable server functions that UNIX can provide. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2000
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