31.3 Overview and Quick Tour

SWAT is a tools that many be used to configure Samba, or just to obtain useful links to important reference materials such as the contents of this book, as well as other documents that have been found useful for solving Windows networking problems.

31.3.1 The SWAT Home Page

The SWAT title page provides access to the latest Samba documentation. The manual page for each Samba component is accessible from this page, as are the Samba HOWTO-Collection (this document) as well as the O'Reilly book " Using Samba ."

Administrators who wish to validate their Samba configuration may obtain useful information from the man pages for the diagnostic utilities. These are available from the SWAT home page also. One diagnostic tool that is not mentioned on this page, but that is particularly useful is ethereal . ^[1]

^[1] http://www.ethereal.com/

W ARNING

SWAT can be configured to run in demo mode. This is not recommended as it runs SWAT without authentication and with full administrative ability. Allows changes to smb.conf as well as general operation with root privileges. The option that creates this ability is the -a flag to swat. Do not use this in a production environment .

31.3.2 Global Settings

The GLOBALS button will expose a page that allows configuration of the global parameters in smb.conf . There are two levels of exposure of the parameters:

• Basic ” exposes common configuration options.

• Advanced ” exposes configuration options needed in more complex environments.

To switch to other than Basic editing ability, click on Advanced . You may also do this by clicking on the radio button, then click on the Commit Changes button.

After making any changes to configuration parameters, make sure that you click on the Commit Changes button before moving to another area, otherwise your changes will be lost.

N OTE

SWAT has context-sensitive help. To find out what each parameter is for, simply click on the Help link to the left of the configuration parameter.

31.3.3 Share Settings

To effect a currently configured share, simply click on the pull down button between the Choose Share and the Delete Share buttons , select the share you wish to operate on, then to edit the settings click on the Choose Share button. To delete the share, simply press the Delete Share button.

To create a new share, next to the button labeled Create Share enter into the text field the name of the share to be created, then click on the Create Share button.

31.3.4 Printers Settings

To affect a currently configured printer, simply click on the pull down button between the Choose Printer and the Delete Printer buttons, select the printer you wish to operate on, then to edit the settings click on the Choose Printer button. To delete the share, simply press the Delete Printer button.

To create a new printer, next to the button labeled Create Printer enter into the text field the name of the share to be created, then click on the Create Printer button.

31.3.5 The SWAT Wizard

The purpose if the SWAT Wizard is to help the Microsoft-knowledgeable network administrator to configure Samba with a minimum of effort.

The Wizard page provides a tool for rewriting the smb.conf file in fully optimized format. This will also happen if you press the Commit button. The two differ since the Rewrite button ignores any changes that may have been made, while the Commit button causes all changes to be affected.

The Edit button permits the editing (setting) of the minimal set of options that may be necessary to create a working Samba server.

Finally, there are a limited set of options that will determine what type of server Samba will be configured for, whether it will be a WINS server, participate as a WINS client, or operate with no WINS support. By clicking one button, you can elect to expose (or not) user home directories.

31.3.6 The Status Page

The status page serves a limited purpose. First, it allows control of the Samba daemons. The key daemons that create the Samba server environment are: smbd, nmbd, winbindd .

The daemons may be controlled individually or as a total group . Additionally, you may set an automatic screen refresh timing. As MS Windows clients interact with Samba, new smbd processes will be continually spawned. The auto-refresh facility will allow you to track the changing conditions with minimal effort.

Lastly, the Status page may be used to terminate specific smbd client connections in order to free files that may be locked.

31.3.7 The View Page

This page allows the administrator to view the optimized smb.conf file and, if you are particularly masochistic, will permit you also to see all possible global configuration parameters and their settings.

31.3.8 The Password Change Page

The Password Change page is a popular tool that allows the creation, deletion, deactivation , and reactivation of MS Windows networking users on the local machine. Alternately, you can use this tool to change a local password for a user account.

When logged in as a non-root account, the user will have to provide the old password as well as the new password (twice). When logged in as root , only the new password is required.

One popular use for this tool is to change user passwords across a range of remote MS Windows servers.