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5. Basic Windows 95 Setup

(written by Andy Lindeman, lindeman@ma.ultranet.com)

This section of the document covers the following:

  1. General Windows 95 Setup
  2. Using services on your Red Hat server from your Win95 client
  3. Using your Win95 system as a server, providing services to your Red Hat system acting as a client

5.1 General Windows 95 Setup

Go to the Network component of Control Panel.

Installing the TCP/IP protocol and the Microsoft (SMB) client

If you haven't added the driver for your ethernet card, do so.

You must add:

TCP/IP protocol

In the Network window:

``Add'' (button)
    Protocol (select in the ``Select Network Component Type'' window)
       Microsoft (select in the ``Select Network Protocol'' window)
          select ``TCP/IP'' and hit the ``OK'' button

Client for Microsoft Networks

In the Network window:

``Add'' (button)
    Client (select in the ``Select Network Component Type'' window)
       Microsoft (select in the ``Select Network Protocol'' window)
          select ``Client for Microsoft Networks'' and hit the ``OK'' button

Make sure your ethernet card is bound against TCP/IP by selecting your ethernet card in the initial Network window and then pressing the Properties button.

Choose the Bindings tab and look to see if TCP/IP is checked.

Setting up the Microsoft Network client and TCP/IP

Setting up the Microsoft Network client:

In the initial Network window, choose the Identification tab. You will need to give your computer a name and a workgroup. The default workgroup for both Windows 95 and Samba is workgroup --- this will be fine. Make sure the name you give your Windows 95 computer is different from other computers using SMB on your network.

If you would like for others to be able to browse your Win95 hard drive or print to your printer, in the initial Network window, click the File and Print Sharing button. There will be more steps to follow in Section Setting up your shares on Win95.

Setting up TCP/IP:

To set up TCP/IP, in the Network window select TCP/IP --> {amp;#123;your ethernet card}amp;#125; and hit the Properties button.

IP Address tab:

If you haven't already given your Windows 95 computer an IP address, you must do so. If you're going to be on a ``private'' network, you should pick addresses in these ranges:

10.0.0.0    --  10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0  --  172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 --  192.168.255.255

These addresses were set aside for private network use in RFC1597. If possible, don't use .0, .1 or .255 as they are usually reserved for various network functions.

The subnet mask is 255.255.255.0

WINS Configuration tab:

Click on the WINS Configuration tab and click Enable WINS Resolution. Add the IP address of your Samba server running nmbd. Microsoft refers to the netbios nameserver as a WINS Server.

Gateway tab:

The gateway is typically your subnet with a .1 at the end (xxx.xxx.xxx.1)

Bindings tab:

Make sure Client for Microsoft Networks is checked.

DNS Configuration tab:

If you're on a network with nameservers, you should add their IP addresses.

Once you're finished setting up the Network component of Control Panel, hit OK and reboot your computer.

5.2 Using services on your Red Hat server from your Win95 client

After you've made all the changes to control panel and have rebooted, double-click the Network Neighborhood icon. You'll see your Win95 computer and Entire Network. Double click on Entire Network --- you should see a listing of all the workgroups on your subnet. Unless you've changed the default workgroup that your Samba server and Win95 client are a part of, they should be in Workgroup.

If your Samba server doesn't show up in Network Neighborhood (this is called ``browsing'' the network), you may need to add a c:\windows\lmhosts file and reboot. This file will allow your Win95 computer to locate other computers broadcasting SMB without requiring a NetBios nameserver. There should be a lmhosts.sam file in c:\windows that gives a template you can edit and rename. Versions of Samba older than 1.9.15p8 are known for causing Win95 browsing problems. Another typical cause of browsing problems is having computers on different subnets.

If you still aren't able to locate your Samba server, try going to the Start button, Find and then Computer to find your server. If Find locates the server, you'll be able to set up services from here.

Once you successfully bring up your Samba server within Network Neighborhood or Find, you can double click on shares and log in. If you'd like to have a share show up as a drive letter (such as e:, f:, etc.), right click on it and select Map Network Drive to choose a drive letter. You can also specify whether or not you want to reconnect each time you log in to Win95. If you don't want to browse Network Neighborhood each time you need to access a share, and you don't want to give it a drive letter, you can also drag an icon of a share onto your desktop.

You can set up printer shares by double clicking on them and selecting a Windows printer driver.

If you still have difficulty getting your Samba server to show either through Network Neighborhood or through Find Computer, there's one last thing to try. Open the Windows Explorer and select Tools and Map Network Drive. In the path, type in the name of your share --- such as \\SAMBA\SHARE and put the applicable Samba (Linux) username in the Connect As line. If there's no luck with that, try putting the IP address in the path (e.g. \\10.0.0.1\SHARE). If it still doesn't connect, chances are you've got something set up incorrectly on the server. Try using smbclient on your Linux computer to connect to itself and to your Win95 computer to troubleshoot.

5.3 Using your Win95 system as a server, providing services to your Red Hat system acting as a client

Setting up your shares on Win95

You can control who has access to your Win95 computer and to what directories and printers they have access. To set up shares, open either Explorer or My Computer and right click on one of your local hard drive partitions, a directory, or printer and select Sharing. From here, you can specify the name, description and permissions of the share.

A nice utility to administrate Win95 shares is Net Watcher. Net Watcher allows you do add/delete and monitor the use of shares. If it is installed, it should be netwatch.exe in your windows directory. If not, open the Add/Remove Programs component of Control Panel, hit the Windows Setup tab and choose Net Watcher from within Accessories.

Setting up the ksmbfs package

You will need to get the ksmbfs package which is separate from the basic Samba software on your Red Hat system. You can get this at, e.g.

ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Filesystems/smbfs/ksmbfs-0.3.tgz

Unzip and untar this package, and then just type make. You should get a bin subdirectory with three files: smbfs.o, smbmount, and smbumount. The first is a module that only needs to be installed if you are running kernel 1.2.13 or less than 1.3.8 --- newer kernels have this module built in. If you need to install this, you will need a recent modules package (e.g. 1.2.8), which you can also get off of the usual sites. You can then install the module with:

insmod smbfs.o

Mounting your Win95 shares on your Linux computer

Finally, you can access Win95 shares on your Red Hat system by using the smbmount utility you've just built from the ksmbfs package; e.g.:

smbmount //WIN95SYS/WIN95SHARE some-mount-point -P password

You may have to add the -c RHHOST option if you have a fully qualified domain name for your Red Hat system (here acting as a client). Now, the Win95 directory should be available to use on your Red Hat system.

You can also use the smbclient utility, which does come with the basic Samba suite on Red Hat Linux, to provide an FTP-like file interface between a Red Hat system acting as a client and a Win95 system acting as a server. See man smbclient for more information on this.

Printing from your Red Hat system to a printer on your Win95system

Here you can use the smbclient program, which again comes with the basic Samba package, to print Red Hat files on a Win95 system. The basic command to get this going is:

smbclient \\server\service -P

You may have to double up each \ character, as these are normally escape characters under Linux. The -P option says to connect as a printer service. You may be prompted for a password if there is one on the service; if so, enter it and press the [Enter] key.

You will now be given the smbclient prompt, e.g. smb: \>. The smbclient commands to print on the remote service are:

print filename             ; prints the RH file on the Win95 system
queue                      ; examine the print service queue
exit                       ; exit smbclient

Check the man page for smbclient for more command options.


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