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Using Samba

Once Samba is configured and the service is running properly, there is very little you need to do to keep it going. However, Samba can provide you with a great deal of useful information about user behavior on your network. If you want to check out what's going on with Samba from your local system, there are a few different tools you can use. Some tools let you see how others are using the shared files and printers from your Linux system, while others let you view and access files and printers being shared by other computers.

See Who is Connected

To see the users who are currently connected to the Samba server and what they are doing, issue the following command:

   # smbstatus
   Samba version 3.0.2-7.FC1
   PID        Username   Group          Machine
   ---------------------------------------------------------
   Service        pid    machine        Connected at
   -------------------------------------------------------------
   Musicbox       9399   maple          Thu Jan 29 00:30:21 2004
   IPC$           9399   maple          Wed Jan 28 20:05:10 2004

Check an IP Address

If you can't remember the IP address of a computer attached to your network, but you do remember the machine name, use the Samba net command to get the IP number:

   # net lookup host1
   10.0.0.1

Check Available Shares

Use the smbclient command to see the status of shares from other computers on your network. smbclient will report all shared directories and printers, including those attached to Windows or Linux client machines. Here is a sample output from the smbclient command:

   # smbclient -L fileserver

   Sharename        Type     Comment
   ---------        ----     -------
   homes            Disk
   Musicbox         Disk     My music collection
   IPC$             IPC      IPC Service (Toys samba server)
   ADMIN$           IPC      IPC Service (Toys samba server)
   lp0              Printer  Created by redhat-config-printer
   Chris            Disk     Home directory of chris

   Server                 Comment
   ---------              -------

   Workgroup              Master
   ---------              ------
   CSTREET                DUCK

The output shows that shared directories include homes, Musicbox, and chris. The printer lp0 is also being shared. The master browser for the CSTREET workgroup is DUCK.

If you like, you can actually connect to and work with the share from Linux using the smbclient command. Using the example above, assume that you want to connect to the Musicbox share. The following example shows a session started to a share using the smbclient command:

# smbclient \\\\ fileserver \\ Musicbox passW3d
smb: \> help
?        altname      archive     blocksize   cancel
cd       chmod        chown       del         dir
du       exit         get         help        history
lcd      link         lowercase   ls          mask
md       mget         mkdir       more        mput
newer    open         print       printmode   prompt
put      pwd          q           queue       quit
rd       recurse      reget     rename      reput
rm       rmdir        setmode   symlink     tar
tarmode  translate    !
smb: \ > cd Bob
smb: \ Bob \ > ls
  .                                  D        0  Mon Feb 2 13:16:44 2004
  ..                                 D        0  Mon Feb 2 12:13:18 2004
  01-Tangled_Up_In_Blue.ogg             7867809  Mon Feb 2 12:11:07 2004
  02-Simple_Twist_Of_Fate.ogg           6344707  Mon Feb 2 12:11:13 2004
  03-You_re_A_Big_Girl_Now.ogg          6421634  Mon Feb 2 12:11:19 2004
   62014  blocks of size 524288. 44544 blocks available
smb:  \ Bob \> quit

You can put the password on the smbclient command line, as shown in the first line of the code block by the passW3d element, or be prompted for it. However, if you type the password on the command line, it can be retrieved through the .bash_history file. It's better to use the prompt. Type help to see available commands. Once connected, you can use smbclient like an FTP interface. Use cd to change directories, ls to list, and get, mget, put, and mput to get and put files. Type quit when you are done.


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