question Windows-Linux network problems

[Adcadet]

Can't seem to make things work properly. Was hoping someone here might be able to point me in the right direction.

Network/Windows machines: primarily Windows 7 machines. Two in particular are ones I want to connect to. Network uses a workgroup, named WORKGROUP. I turned their network settings to be very permissive, accept connections without passwords, etc. I can browse, access, modify, etc both Windows and Linux shares just fine from the Windows machines.

Linux machine: running Ubuntu 13.04.

I can open my network browser through Nautilus, and see each of the computers on my network including the Windows machines. I can browse my Linux shares. But when I click on a Windows machine I want to access, I get "Failed to retrieve share list from server: Connection timed out". The weird thing is, for a while it was working fine, then stopped working, then was working fine again. Now I can't get it to work.

My samba.conf includes the following details:
workgroup = WORKGROUP
# wins support = no
; wins server = w.x.y.z
; dns proxy = no
; name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast



Following this guide: http://www.linuceum.com/Server/srvSambaTrouble.php
I can ping my windows machine that I want to get access to, but at the step of entering "smbclient -L //<IP of Samba Server> -U [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]<server user>"[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif] but the output gives me "protocol negotiation failed: NT_STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES". [/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]

[/FONT]Anybody know what the problem might be? Any help would be much appreciated.[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]

[/FONT]

 

[Mercutio]

Has the Windows machine been rebooted recently? When did this start? Did it ever work and then stop all of a sudden?

Samba is goofy sometimes monthly updates and this is just about the right time for that.

 

[Chewy509]

Do any of the Windows machines have HomeGroup enabled? HomeGroup enables additional parts of the SMB/CIFS protocol that some Linux OSes can't handle (these are part of the SMBv2 suite).

Also samba.conf depending on the version on Linux (and I don't know about Ubuntu in particular) as zero bearing on client connections from the Linux box to the windows box. Instead it uses /etc/smb.conf. (Use smbclient -W to set your local workgroup). You may also have to add flags to smbclient or edit /etc/smb.conf to enable the newer SMBv2 functionality as well... again this all depends on the exact version of the smbclient suite Ubuntu has packaged.

I do know that Ubuntu with 12.04/12.10 screwed up some things with interfacing with Windows boxen that need extra steps to get working, especially if you want Windows based authentication services to start working.

 

[Chewy509]

And what Merc said.... (reboot all machines and try again).

 

[Mercutio]

Does this mean you gave up on FreeNAS?

 

[Adcadet]

No, I still have my FreeNAS computer, although I had the Linux box and FreeNAS box running off of a switch off of my main router. To try to troubleshoot things I plugged the Linux box directly to the LAN cable to the router, and shut down the FreeNAS machine. It worked flawlessly. Really want to set up a dedicated FreeNAS machine at some point, but I'd have to think about what the proper hardware would be.

 

[Adcadet]

My Samba file is is /etc/samba/smb.conf. Not sure what to do with smbclient -W. I believe I turned off HomeGroup on all Windows machines but I'll have to doublecheck. It did work and then suddenly stop without any machine reboots and then decide to start working again a few hours later. Any chance it could have something to do with my router (DIR-655)?

 

[Adcadet]

HTPC upstairs was still part of the Homegroup I had running a long time ago, all other PCs had left it. Left the homegroup, rebooted the HTPC, rebooted the Linux box, same problem. Suppose I could boot the other PCs and my router as well just to be safe.

 

[Adcadet]

And now this morning I can connect to my HTPC by clicking on the bookmark I created (using the "connect to server...smb://_ip_address" method) but not when I browse to it through the network icon. I can't connect to my PC using the "connect to server...smb://_ip_address" method - I get "Unhandled error message: failed to retrieve share list from server: Connection timed out."

 

[Adcadet]

Wife got up, was able to reboot her PC, I rebooted my PC again, rebooted the router, and things seem to work. I can browse my network from my Linux machine. We'll see if it sticks. Hopefully it was just the Homegroup "feature" that was left on on the HTPC upstairs. Could it be that the HTPC's Homegroup thingy was intermittently screwing things up? Anyway, thank you Chewy and Merc!

 

[Adcadet]

Home from work, and it's still working great. Looks like it was probably the Homegrouup bug, er, feature, that was left enabled on the HTPC. Thanks again Chewy and Merc!