My first post to this forum! By reading through all Samba-related threads I still cannot be sure whether my Samba is set up as it should. Mostly, it works however.
I have an old pc running Opensuse 11.1 as a Samba server to store mp3 and photo files. As workstations I have one Opensuse 11.1 and two Windows machines around the house. These are all connected to a router which assigns ip:s dynamically from the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet. Pinging works between all machines.
Windows machines can see both my Suse server and workstation in the network neighborhood and can access the Samba-share without problems. However, when in either of the Suses I type smb:/ on Konqueror I get an error message: “No workgroups on your local network. This may be due to firewall settings” (a free translation into english). I have configured firewall according to the tutorial on swerdna’s great website. Shutting down the firewall doesn’t change the situation. Then, if I use the server’s ip-address on Konqueror (smb://192.168.1.100/), the Suse workstation can access the share - whether it be on a win2000- or samba-machine.
I have been struggling with Samba few days now and have studied swerdna’s site and other sources. I thought yesterday that everything is finally ok, as I was able to see my workgroup “Rose” when browsing to smb:/ Now I can’t.
The core question now is: is this normal behaviour? Can I trust on my settings now and start to utilize the setup? Do I simply have to use ip:s instead of hostnames to create shortcuts to shares etc.?
Are you relying only on the samba config to provide workstation names? If samba share browsing works with IP addresses and the pc’s are included in your /etc/hosts file, then it should work by hostname.
If the firewall being on or off makes no difference, it looks like the firewall is OK. It looks to me like maybe Name Resolution is not working.
Please check that the naming daemon is running. This command should return “running”:
sudo /usr/sbin/rcnmb status
. Probably it’s running but check anyway.
Can you post here the smb.conf file from your Suse server. This command will list it and you can then copy/paste it here:
I can’t see anything wrong with smb.conf.
All I can do is make some general comments:
Fot the [groups] share to work, you would have to create directory “group” at /home/group and make the permissions drwxrwxrwx.
You need these lines in the other Suse machine too:
netbios name = something_different
workgroup = ruusu
name resolve order = bcast host lmhosts wins
os level = 33
map to guest = Bad User
I have seen improvement if you put the os level in the server machine to 65 and add the line:
preferred master = yes
You can put that line in only one Linux machine in your Workgroup.
Check also in Yast firewall settings → Allowed services → both Netbios server and Samba server are listed (in 11.1). Plus in Broadcast =>
External Zone Samba Browsing Subnet: 192.168.1.0/24
Users have been added to the samba user database.
Normally the force user (heikki) would be the owner of the directory Varasto.
The [homes] share would not normally be visible in Linux because of the entry:
browseable = No
all
Even though none of these (except the firewall settings) should stop you seeing one Suse from the other, it’s as well to consider them.
Thank you for your advice. I’ll comment [groups] share away.
You need these lines in the other Suse machine too:
netbios name = something_different
workgroup = ruusu
name resolve order = bcast host lmhosts wins
os level = 33
map to guest = Bad User
I’ll check later when I get back home, but as far as I can remember this is what I have.
I have seen improvement if you put the os level in the server machine to 65 and add the line:
preferred master = yes
You can put that line in only one Linux machine in your Workgroup.
I’ll try.
Check also in Yast firewall settings → Allowed services → both Netbios server and Samba server are listed (in 11.1). Plus in Broadcast =>
External Zone Samba Browsing Subnet: 192.168.1.0/24
Thanks to your site, I’ve got it this way.
Users have been added to the samba user database.
yes
Normally the force user (heikki) would be the owner of the directory Varasto.
I don’t remember. Propably I created it as root. But this shouldn’t affect the visibility of workgroup. Or should it?
The [homes] share would not normally be visible in Linux because of the entry:
browseable = No
all
Even though none of these (except the firewall settings) should stop you seeing one Suse from the other, it’s as well to consider them.
I’ll comment out this homes-share later.
I’m starting to be suspicious about my TP-LINK router…
Every so often, when I can’t figure out why my browsing has stopped, I suddenly remember to reboot everything, including a modem, switch and wireless router that make up the network. Then it works again (cheap hardware).
I added options ‘local master = yes’ and ‘preferred master = yes’ on server’s smb.conf and Now I can see my workgroup on both Suse machines. Everything really works smoothly now.
Thank you very much for your kind help. My next challenge is to hide this server into a cupboard and manage it remotely. Should be easy…
