What Is Samba?

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Samba is a file and print server for Windows-based clients using TCP/IP. TCP/IP is a suite of protocols that is used in most Internet and network communication. This means that Samba is a utility that enables Windows machines to access files and even printers that are connected to a Linux machine. This is an important service because Linux often will be found in mixed environments. Samba was originally developed by Andrew Tridgell but is now being developed by a global team of about 30 active programmers.

You can find a lot of useful details about Samba, if you are interested, at www.samba.org. However, the documents you find will use some terminology you should be familiar with. These terms are explained in Table 22.1.

Table 22.1: Samba Terminology

Term	Meaning
SMB	This stands for Server Message Block. It is the protocol that Microsoft uses for file and print sharing.
IPC	This means Inter Process Communication. It is a technical way of communicating between different programs.
NetBIOS	This stands for Network Basic Input/Output System. This is a method for communicating on a network that is used by Microsoft.
W2K	Short for Windows 2000.

In much of the Samba documentation you will find, these terms are used but not defined. We define them here so that you can use the online Samba documentation available on the Internet. It is certainly possible to configure and use Samba without going into any extensive research on the topic. In fact, in this chapter you will see how to set up Samba and run it. However, some readers will want to go a little deeper on this topic.

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