Introduction

Configure FreeBSD unix as an SMB file server allows it's resources to be accessed by machines running the Microsoft File Sharing Client over a TCP/IP network. Offering SMB file serving requires the installing and configuring of a third party software package called Samba.

Read the Software Installation Overview and Samba installation and Configuration to prepare for this lab. For more information about samba try this web site.

On the FreeBSD server

The inetd daemon or "Internet Super Server" is so called because it manages connections for several different network services. We will be using this to enable SWAT (a web interface) for managing samba. See configuring SWAT later in this lab.

As we have seen with adding other services, we can use the sysinstall utility to enable new services or we can edit the /etc/rc.conf file with the appropriate entries.

• Ensure your networking is setup properly
• Enable inetd by adding inetd_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf or use sysinstall as described below
• Run System Install (only if you didn't do this step manually, else skip to restarting inetd)
• Goto the configure menu
• Select networking
• Enable INETd (and confirm that you want to enable it)
• Edit the inetd.conf when prompted, make sure swat is enabled (very bottom--already done!)
• Before we can start using SWAT we need to install it and the rest of Samba
• The package can be found on disk 3 in the "net" category, or retrieved from the internet (pkg_add /cdrom/packages/net/samba3 or pkg_add -r samba3
• *****The default configuration file smb.conf.default has already been copied to smb.conf in /usr/local/etc*****
• Configure samba to start on the next boot (manually, by adding it to /etc/rc.conf
• Restart samba so that it is running /usr/local/etc/rc.d/samba restart
• restart inetd for the config file change to take effect /etc/rc.d/inetd restart
• INETd is now running, and this allows you to access SWAT on port 901
• Access SWAT via http://localhost:901/ in the Virtual Machine, or http://ip.of.virtual.machine:901/ from the host
• Now we need to configure samba, from the global tab, change the following settings:
• workgroup - set this to WORKGROUP so that it is part of the same group as the XP host machines
• netbios name - this is the unique windows "Computer Name" for your FreeBSD machine, make sure it is unique
• server string - this is the comment that will appear beside your server in the network neighbourhood
• security setting - user level - this uses usernames/passwords to control access. Share level has a seperate password for each share (like windows 95)
• encrypt password - enable this
• commit changes - then goto the status tab and restart all daemons
• Now we need to share something. Goto the shares tab and enter the name of a new share, and click create
• Now you can enter the specifics of the share (the directory that is to be shared, etc) and commit the changes
• Call the share "packages" and point it to the /cdrom/packages directory
• Disable guest access, and make the share read only
• Because we have disabled guest access, now we need to create some users that can access this share
• Samba maintains its own seperate password database, to be compatible with the windows password system, and to allow you to control which users have access
• For a user to be able to access a share, they must exist as a real unix user, and be in the samba password database. The unix password is not used, only the samba one
• Go to the password tab, and enter fbuser and a new password, then click add user
• Enable the fbuser account
• Now restart samba again to ensure all of our new settings are applied

On the XP Host

• goto Computer Management / Local Users and Groups
• add a user called fbuser
• set the password
• set a password for CSAIT

Enabling Home Directory Access

• Samba allows us to automatically allow users to access the contents of their home directory, without having to create specific shares
• enable home directory share access through the [homes] share - accounts on the unix server will be allowed to get to their home directories from a windows host
• create a user account on unix
• create an account (using the same username) and password on the XP host machine
• define a separate share on the SMB server (create a directory and copy files to it)
• create a share that points to your /tmp
• restrict access through user level access - check the help in SWAT
• create samba passwords for your users, using the smbpasswd command line tool this time
• change the configuration to display dot files (or hidden files)
• copy files from MSWindows to your samba server to ensure write access is enabled
• the shares should show up in the network neighbourhood but you could mount them using: net use m: \\servername\sharename

Testing unix samba server

It is very useful to be able to test out your configurations from the unix samba server before going to the client machine:
To list shares that are available from the configured Samba server, execute the following command:
smbclient –N -L yourhostname (-N will not prompt you for a password)
To connect to the shares that you have configured you can use a unix client:
smbclient //hostname/your-service
smbd –v will show status of the smbd daemon
testparm /usr/local/etc/smb.conf
is very useful especially if you configure samba directly by modifying smb.conf instead of using SWAT
smbpasswd –a username (rather than changing the password through the SWAT menu, you can modify passwords from the shell prompt