Section 3.1. Installing Samba

3.1. Installing Samba

Samba isn't a single server; rather, it's a family of servers that together provide the full functionality of the package. (Nonetheless, references to "the Samba server" or similar phrases are common.) Four daemons provide the most important Samba features.

smbd

This daemon handles the file- and printer-serving functions per se. Clients connect to it using TCP port 139 or 445 to request the transfer of files.

nmbd

This daemon handles most of the SMB/CIFS functionality not provided by smbd, including NetBIOS name resolution (as described in Section 3.3) and browsing features (as described briefly in the Section 3.4 and in more detail in Chapter 5). Iff you run smbd, chances are you'll also run nmbd. This server binds to UDP ports 137 and 138.

SWAT

The Samba Web Administration Tool (SWAT) provides a web-based GUI administration tool for Samba. Running it isn't necessary, and I don't describe it further in this book. It can be a handy tool for new Samba administrators, though, and it provides some functions that can help ordinary users, such as an interface to change their passwords. It usually runs on TCP port 901.

Winbind

This daemon, which is also known as winbindd, provides a way for Linux to access NetBIOS name and Windows NT domain information. The main upshot is that a system that runs Winbind can authenticate its local users against the Windows domain's user database, as described in Chapter 7. Although Winbind is a daemon, it isn't a server for other computers; it enables extra functionality solely for the computer on which it runs.

In addition to these daemons, Samba provides a number of support utilities and client programs. These include the smbclient client program, which provides FTP-like access to SMB/CIFS shares; the smbmount utilities, which helps you mount SMB/CIFS shares in Linux; and the smbpasswd utility for handling Samba passwords. Some of these tools are described in this chapter, but others are covered elsewhere in this book.

Most Linux distributions deliver these programs in one or more packages. Typically, a base package is called samba or samba-common. Additional functionality often ships in other packages, such as samba-clients or swat. Consult your distribution's package list and descriptions to learn what you need to install for the functionality you require. Alternatively, you can download and install Samba from its own web site, http://www.samba.org. This site's download area provides links to binaries for many distributions and to a source code tarball that should compile on any Linux distribution. (Just one source tarball contains all the major Samba components described here.)

Samba (or at least the smbd and nmbd daemons) is typically launched through SysV startup scripts, and these usually install from the distribution's main Samba package. If you installed Samba from a source tarball, though, you'll need to create your own SysV startup script, run Samba from a local startup script, or launch Samba manually on an as-needed basis. (The packaging subdirectory of the Samba source package includes sample SysV startup scripts for several distributions.) Although it's possible to run Samba from a super server such as inetd or xinetd, doing so is uncommon and isn't recommended. In fact, nmbd tends to be a bit difficult to run in this way.

A few features related to SMB/CIFS aren't part of the main Samba package. Most notably, the ability to mount SMB/CIFS shares on a Linux system is built into the Linux kernel, although it relies on the external smbmount command, which is part of the Samba package. Some GUI SMB/CIFS network browsers are also available separately. Many of these tools nonetheless rely on the basic Samba configuration described in this chapter for certain default values.