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6. Basic Windows NT 4.0 Setup

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

This section of the document covers the following:

  1. General Windows NT 4.0 Setup
  2. Using services on your Red Hat server from your WinNT 4.0 client
  3. Using your WinNT 4.0 system as a server, providing services to your Red Hat system acting as a client

6.1 General Windows NT 4.0 Setup

Go to the Network component of Control Panel.

Installing and configuring necessary protocols, services, etc.

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

You must add/configure:

Protocol tab:

select TCP/IP and hit the OK button after it's been added, select TCP/IP and hit the PROPERTIES button

IP Address tab:

Make sure your ethernet card is the adapter that is selected. If you haven't already given your Windows NT 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

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

DNS tab:

If you're on a network with nameservers, you should add their IP addresses. You can also give your computer an Internet style name as well (e.g. mycomputer@computer.com) where mycomputer is the hostname and computer.com is the domain.

WINS Address tab:

Make sure your ethernet adapter is selected and add the IP address of your Samba server running nmbd. Microsoft refers to the netbios nameserver as a ``WINS Server''.

Services tab:

Here's a short explanation of some of the services you might use on NT in conjunction with a Samba server:

You should add Computer Browser, NetBIOS Interface and Workstation. If you think you might want to serve shares as well, add Server.

In the Network window:

Services (tab)
   ``Add'' (button)
      [service]

Identification tab:

If you haven't given your computer a name and made it a part of domain or a workgroup do so. The default workgroup for both Windows NT and Samba is workgroup --- this will be fine. Make sure the name you give your Windows NT computer is different from other computers using SMB on your network.

Bindings tab:

Make sure that NetBIOS, Workstation and Server (if installed) are all bound against WINS Client (TCP/IP).

6.2 Using services on your Red Hat server from your WinNT 4.0 client

After you've made all the changes to control panel and have rebooted, double-click the Network Neighborhood icon. You'll see your WinNT computer and Entire Network. Double click on Entire Network and then Microsoft Windows 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 WinNT 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 use the lmhosts facility. The lmhosts file will allow your WinNT computer to locate other computers broadcasting SMB without requiring a NetBios nameserver. There should be a lmhosts.sam file in \WinNT\system32\drivers\etc that gives a template you can follow. Copy the .sam file to a temporary directory, edit and save it. Open the network component of control panel, select the protocols tab and double click on TCP/IP. Select the WINS Address tab, click the Import LMHOSTS button, specify the location of your lmhosts file and reboot. If, after creating a lmhosts file, you still cannot browse, edit the \WinNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file and use the Enable DNS for Windows Resolution option in the WINS Address tab. Versions of Samba older than 1.9.16p9 are known for causing WinNT 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 WinNT. 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 to your WinNT computer to troubleshoot.

6.3 Using your WinNT 4.0 system as a server, providing services to your Red Hat system acting as a client

Setting up your shares on WinNT

In order to provide shares on your WinNT computer, you must setup the Server service (see Services from Section General Windows NT 4.0 Setup).

You can control who has access to your WinNT 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.

If you'd like to monitor the use of shares on your Windows NT computer, use the Server component of Control Panel.

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 WinNT shares on your Linux computer

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

smbmount //WINNTSYS/WINNTSHARE 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 WinNT 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 WinNT system acting as a server. See man smbclient for more information on this.

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

Here you can use the smbclient program, which again comes with the basic Samba package, to print Red Hat files on a WinNT 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 WinNT system
queue                      ; examine the print service queue
exit                       ; exit smbclient

Check the man page for smbclient for more command options.


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