SAMBA configuration, Linux server , W2K SP2 clients

[LiamC]

OK peeps, I'm just a noob at this.

I've got a Linux machine I want to use as a server (RH 7.3).
Client machines are W2K SP2.
Clients can ping server, server can ping clients
Clients can access internet via ADSL on server
I've mounted all the FAT32 disks I want to share and can see the contents from the Linux box.
The workgroup is correct.
I've run testparm over my smb.conf file and it reports OK
I've been working my way through the diagnosis.txt file and everything works up to step 4.

When I try this on the client (from a W2K cmd prompt)
net view \\server

I get this response
system error 5 has occurred
access is denied

I assume that my user names are out of synch, though I did notice trying to map a share under Explorer, W2K reported that the username was MACHINENAME/username.

I was using "Firstname Lastname" (in proper case) as the user name under W2K. I changed this to "firstnameinitial" ie williamc on the W2K box, and made sure I had an account on the RH box spelt the same and made sure the passwords were the same and the right case. Still no joy. I also tried turning encrypted passwords on and synching the SAMBA list with the UNIX list.

I'm going to bed, but if anyone has any ideas on what I'm doing wrong, I'd like a few pointers...

Thanks

 

[LiamC]

OK, an update. When I connect from a Windows 98SE machine, I can connect OK, but W2K SP2 - no go.

 

[James]

I'm afraid I can't help much with Win2k. (XP makes life easier because the Policy Editor allows you to switch off encrypted passwords to 3rd party SMB servers, as opposed to fooling around in regedit.) However, I've never had much fun trying to use encrypted passwords on Samba servers - I know, I know, it's all supposed to work fine, but I've never had any joy in that direction. Make sure that the smb.conf file also specifies unencrypted passwords...

You should probably check to make sure the users in question have read and write access to the share under the Unix permissions for the direction.

Use username and password by themselves; don't use the DOMAIN\username and password form unless you're running a domain (euh, obviously). If possible for the moment don't use passwords with mixed case.

I run a batch file on system startup to reattach Samba shares because I can't get XP to reattach to a persistent share. Try :

net use z: \\server\share password /user:username /persistent:no

at a CMD prompt and let us know what happens.

 

[Mercutio]

XP + samba = evil.

There is a registry patch included with the samba distribution files that turns off encrypted passwords. It looks like this:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkStation\Paramete
rs]
"EnablePlainTextPassword"=dword:00000001

Copy that into a .reg file and execute it and that'll do what you want, unless you feel like recompiling samba for encryption support.

 

[LiamC]

Thanks Mercutio, blatted the samba.conf and started again.

Now I could get my wife's PC to see the SAMBA server, (from W2K) but I couldn't, and my wife couldn't when booting into W98SE.

I'll start again...

 

[LiamC]

Success! This post is coming to you from a Windows 2000 box connecting through RH7.3

 

[James]

Congrats. Did you use encrypted passwords in the end?

 

[LiamC]

Yep, but I spoke too soon. I can't log into the Linux box from a Windows 98SE machine now - and I've tried the "EnablePlainTextPassword" REG hack, and without it.

The other problem is with the connection dropping after an idle time. I'll do more investigating...