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It is a rare network that consists of machines running a single operating system. Most administrators find themselves working in mixed, or heterogeneous, computing environments with networks that include Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and other UNIX-based operating systems. Although this might seem like a giant headache, recent years have brought methods that make heterogeneous network administration less problematic than in the past.
The Server Message Block protocol, or SMB, is now the most common way in which to share files and printers among computers on a secure network, regardless of their native operating systems. Under Linux, the SMB implementation of choice is called Samba. Samba is actually a set of applications and protocols that allows Linux machines to act as SMB clients or servers when interacting with Windows systems.
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Because Mac OS X is also based on a system derived from UNIX, some of the same network services you use on Linux systems (such as Samba, NFS, and others) are also available on Mac OS X. So the skills you learn setting up a Samba server in Linux can be brought over to the Mac as well. |
While Samba is very popular and most administrators are familiar with at least its basic features, it can be a challenge to get it working on any given network with its own peculiarities. In this chapter, we show you how to configure Samba on a Linux machine. Then we describe a number of common problems and offer simple ways to troubleshoot these situations.
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