Linux on WindowsNT network

[Icarus]

I finally got around to installing Linux on a PC at work, and it is working great! It got a DHCP address from the network, internet/intranet work great and I was even able to get my e-mail from the Exchange server using Balsa!

I have a few more things I need to try to get working before I can think of using it for my Workstation (and show off to the IS VP, my bosses boss :D)...I need to be able to access the NT servers (via samba I would assume) but can't figure out how to map to the servers. I'm also having trouble setting up a printer that is on an NT server. I am using Gnome as the desktop running on Red Hat 7.2. Anyone know of a HOWTO for Samba-client?

Once I get these few things out of the way I only need to hope that Wine can run our prioritory software :)

[slacker_x]

SAMBA NHF (http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/network/samba/samba1.html)

SAMBA Project Documentation (http://ca.samba.org/samba/docs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection.html)

man samba is good too

There are graphical "network neighborhood" replacements out there, but I don't know the names of them. google that one

[Icarus]

Originally posted by slacker_x:
<STRONG>
There are graphical "network neighborhood" replacements out there, but I don't know the names of them. google that one</STRONG>

It's called LinNeighborhood (http://www.bnro.de/~schmidjo/), I've tried installing it but ran into a few problems getting it on... it requires GTK+ libraries and GNU gettext, no problem for my server at home...but this system I'm working on only has a 1.2 gig HD :)

All the Samba documentation I can find refers to getting Windows on a Unix network, I'm working the other way this time...Unix to Windows network. That Samba doc might help a bit with some things, I'll post later what I come up with. THANKS!

[mangeli]

If your drives are formated NTFS I don't think you'll be able to do it. I don't think Linux can read NTFS

[Icarus]

NTFS should not matter as long as the directory is shared. I can't remember the command to search and/or map to a network drive in *nix systems. I don't need GUI (it would be nice) and am very comfortable with CLI. Samba-client IS installed and I should not have to install any other component to view shares (only if I want to host a share).

[jumpedintothefire]

/usr/bin/smbclient -L &lt;othercompname&gt; -U &lt;username&gt;

/usr/bin/smbclient -h will get a brief rundown of the other options that you can use.

[infotech]

I have been working on this same problem for about a week now. I am currently working on mounting a share to a dir i created, but having problems. I can however access the shares by typing this

smbclient //servername/sharename -U username%password

Then you can use get commands to retrieve files, and then the put command to send it back to the share. Its kinda crude, but it works for now. At least until I can correctly mount the share.

[infotech]

finally figured out the way to mount an NTFS share on Linux. My workstation is Redhat 7.2 my server is NT 4.0 server here is the steps:
I have yet to get printers..
1. creat a directory /home/user/share
2. su to root
3. mount -t smbfs -o username%password,domain //servername/sharname /home/user/share

This well mount the share and show all dir's and files in file manager. Not excatly a nethood, but it gets the job done. Now onto printers...

[jumpedintothefire]

Good stuff infotech, you can put that mount string into rc.local to mount it on boot up. smbclient is a pain to use IMHO.

[Icarus]

You rock infotech! When you figure out the printers I'd love to know how, I don't have as much time as I want to work on this...considering it is un-authorized at work and on company machines, I'm surprised I've gotten this far! :D

[jumpedintothefire]

I had to use a little different syntax:
mount -t smbfs -o username=xxx,password=yyy //servername/sharname /home/user/share

But my server is a member of an NT domain sharing out files and my samba version is 2.0.10. What are you running?

[infotech]

You are right, that is the correct way to mount. I am learning this stuff as we speak, only reason I answered is because finding basic commands about this subject is like pulling teeth. See How I did it discussion for my final impementation.

[ 09 November 2001: Message edited by: infotech ]

[Icarus]

I have the machine logged onto the network as my user (wouldn't be assigned DHCP if it wasn't) so my syntax is like this...
mount -t smbfs //&lt;server&gt;/&lt;directory&gt; /&lt;mount point&gt;

Then it asks for a password, enter it and all is good. Found out that Nautilus can navigate the share very well, almost like explorer in Windows! Very cool! Now the big fun is going to be setting all that up in fstab so it mounts at boot.
Is there a way to mount the root directory of the share, I have to mount one of the first level sub-directories. It works, but to do what I'd like...that's a lot of mounts!

[Kerey]

SMB printers are pretty easy to set up if you get the CUPS www admin tool.

If you are connecting to an NT server, make sure you use smb://username :password@computer/printer_share and not just smb://computer/printer_share

[ 09 November 2001: Message edited by: Kerey ]