Chapter 16. Windows Networking
| Samba is one of the most important open-source projects in the world because it makes it possible for Linux (and other Unix machines, such as Mac OS X) to use Server Message Block (SMB), the networking protocol used on all Microsoft Windows machines. With Samba, Unix machines can connect to and mount shares on Windows machines, and print to shared printers connected to Windows machines. Unix machines can also set up Samba-based printer and file shares that Windows machines can connect to and use. In fact, Samba is so useful that you don't even need Windows machines in the equation. You might choose to implement Samba for file and printer sharing on a network of Linux machines because it works so well. Many good books cover how to set up Samba on a server, so we're not going to cover administrative commands such as smbd, smbcacls, or smbpasswd (which, it is true, can be run by normal users to change their own passwords, but in practice is almost always run by the Samba server admin), or how to configure smb.conf. Instead, this chapter assumes you already have SMB shares set up on a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X machine. You're instead going to focus on the client end of things: how to find out where those shares are, how to connect to those shares, and how to mount shares on your hard drive. Tip Some good books on setting up and administering Samba include
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