Chapter 2. Installing Samba on a Unix System

Read the Documentation

This part might seem obvious, but at one time or other you probably uncompressed a package, blindly typed:

$ configure; make; make install

and walked away to get another cup of coffee. Do yourself a favor and be a little more careful this time.

In the top-level directory that you just installed, there is a file named WHATSNEW.txt, which contains the latest news about the release. If you are upgrading, you can find important information about bug fixes or configuration parameters that have been added or are no longer supported.

With both source and binary packages you'll find a large number of documents in the docs directory, in a variety of formats. One file is especially important:

docs/htmldocs/UNIX_INSTALL.html

This is the Samba Team's official instructions on installing Samba on a Unix system, which you might like to use as another perspective besides what we are telling you here.

In general, we expect you'll find to be most useful the files in the following directories:

docs/faq

This is the Samba Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) files.

docs/htmldocs

This is the miscellaneous documentation in HTML format.

docs/textdocs

Here is more documentation, in simple text format.

docs/manpages

You don't need to worry about these yet; during the installation, the files will be installed so that you can use the man command to read them. But you can take a look in the directory to see which manpages are available.

Configuring Samba

Samba automatically configures itself prior to compilation. This reduces the likelihood of a machine-specific problem, but you might end up wishing for an option after Samba has been installed.

The source distribution of Samba 2.2 and above doesn't initially have a makefile. Instead, one is generated through a >GNU configure script, which is located in the samba-2.2.x /source/ directory. The configure script takes care of the machine-specific issues of building Samba.

NOTE

Before running the configure script, it is important that you become the root user on the system. Otherwise, you might get a warning such as:

configure: warning: running as non-root will disable some tests

You don't want any test to be disabled when the Samba makefile is being created; it would leave the potential for errors down the road when compiling or running Samba on your system.

When the configure script is run, it prints out messages telling what it is doing, and error messages might be mixed in. To make sure you see those very important error messages, we suggest you run configure with its standard output passed through some filter to capture the output and keep it from scrolling out of sight. One method is using the more command:

# ./configure | more

We will show you another in a moment.

Although you can run configure as previously with no options, you might want to add support for extra features by passing options on the command line. For example:

# ./configure --with-winbind

will configure the Samba makefile with support for winbind authentication. If you would like a complete list of options, type the following:

# ./configure --help

Each option enables or disables various features. You typically enable a feature by specifying the --with-feature option, which will cause the feature to be compiled and installed. Likewise, if you specify a --without-feature option, the feature will be disabled. A full list of configuration options is provided in Appendix E, but for now we want to point out three of them, which are features we cover later in this book:

--with-msdfs

Include support for Microsoft Distributed filesystem (Dfs), which allows dispersed network resources to be clumped together into one easy-to-navigate directory tree. See Chapter 8.

--with-smbwrapper

Include SMB wrapper support, which allows programs running on the Unix host to access SMB shared folders as if they were Unix filesystems. We recommend using this option. See Chapter 5.

--with-smbmount

Include smbmount support, which allows SMB shared folders to be mounted in the Unix filesystem. At the time of this writing, support for this feature exists only for Linux. This is also covered in Chapter 5.

Each option is disabled by default, and none of the features is essential to Samba. However, you may want to include them in your configuration (as we will in our example) at least to be able to try out the options in later chapters.

In addition, Table 2-1 shows some other parameters that you can give the configure script if you wish to store parts of the Samba distribution in different places, perhaps to make use of multiple disks or partitions. Note that the defaults sometimes refer to a prefix specified earlier in the table.

Table 2-1. Additional configure options

Here is a sample execution of the configure script, which creates a Samba 2.2.6 makefile for the Linux platform. Note that you must run the configure script in the source directory and that we are showing you yet another way to capture the output of the script:

$ cd samba-2.2.6/source/
$ su
Password:
# ./configure --with-smbwrapper --with-smbmount \
--with-msdfs --with-syslog --with-utmp 2>&1 | tee config.my.log
loading cache ./config.cache
checking for gcc... (cached) gcc
checking whether the C compiler (gcc -O ) works... yes
checking whether the C compiler (gcc -O ) is a cross-compiler... no
checking whether we are using GNU C... (cached) yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes
checking for a BSD-compatible install... (cached) /usr/bin/install -c

...(content omitted)...

checking configure summary
configure OK
creating ./config.status
creating include/stamp-h
creating Makefile
creating include/config.h

In general, any message from configure that doesn't begin with the words checking or creating is an error; it often helps to redirect the output of the configure script to a file so that you can quickly search for errors, as we did with the tee command earlier. If there was an error during configuration, more detailed information about it can be found in the config.log file, which is written to the local directory by the configure script, as well as in the config.my.log file, which we created by piping through the tee command. These files are very similar in both name and content, but be careful to check both of them for error messages before continuing!

If the configuration works, you'll see a checking configure summary message followed by a configure OK message and four or five file-creation messages. So far, so good.

Compiling and Installing Samba

At this point you should be ready to build the Samba executables. Compiling is also easy: in the source directory, type make on the command line. The make utility will produce a stream of explanatory and success messages, beginning with:

Using FLAGS = -O -Iinclude ...

This build includes compiles for both smbd and nmbd and ends in a linking command for bin/nmblookup. For example, here is a sample make of Samba Version 2.2.6 on a Linux server:

# make 2>&1 | tee make.log
Using FLAGS =  -O  -Iinclude -I./include -I./ubiqx -I./smbwrapper -D_LARGEFILE64
_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_GNU_SOURCE  -DLOGFILEBASE="/usr/local/samba/va
r" -DCONFIGFILE="/usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf" -DLMHOSTSFILE="/usr/local/samba/
lib/lmhosts"   -DSWATDIR="/usr/local/samba/swat" -DSBINDIR="/usr/local/samba/bin
" -DLOCKDIR="/usr/local/samba/var/locks" -DCODEPAGEDIR="/usr/local/samba/lib/cod
epages" -DDRIVERFILE="/usr/local/samba/lib/printers.def" -DBINDIR="/usr/local/sa
mba/bin"  -DHAVE_INCLUDES_H -DPASSWD_PROGRAM="/bin/passwd" -DSMB_PASSWD_FILE="/u
sr/local/samba/private/smbpasswd" -DTDB_PASSWD_FILE="/usr/local/samba/private/sm
bpasswd.tdb"
Using FLAGS32 =  -O  -Iinclude -I./include -I./ubiqx -I./smbwrapper -D_LARGEFILE
64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_GNU_SOURCE  -DLOGFILEBASE="/usr/local/samba/
var" -DCONFIGFILE="/usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf" -DLMHOSTSFILE="/usr/local/samb
a/lib/lmhosts"   -DSWATDIR="/usr/local/samba/swat" -DSBINDIR="/usr/local/samba/b
in" -DLOCKDIR="/usr/local/samba/var/locks" -DCODEPAGEDIR="/usr/local/samba/lib/c
odepages" -DDRIVERFILE="/usr/local/samba/lib/printers.def" -DBINDIR="/usr/local/
samba/bin"  -DHAVE_INCLUDES_H -DPASSWD_PROGRAM="/bin/passwd" -DSMB_PASSWD_FILE="
/usr/local/samba/private/smbpasswd" -DTDB_PASSWD_FILE="/usr/local/samba/private/
smbpasswd.tdb"
Using LIBS = -ldl -lnsl -lpam
Compiling smbd/server.c
Compiling smbd/files.c
Compiling smbd/chgpasswd.c
Compiling smbd/connection.c
Compiling smbd/utmp.c
Compiling smbd/session.c
Compiling smbd/dfree.c
Compiling smbd/dir.c

...(content omitted)...

Compiling rpc_server/srv_srvsvc.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_srvsvc_nt.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_util.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_wkssvc.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_wkssvc_nt.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_pipe.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_dfs.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_dfs_nt.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_spoolss.c
Compiling rpc_server/srv_spoolss_nt.c
Compiling lib/util_getent.c
Compiling rpc_parse/parse_lsa.c
Compiling rpc_parse/parse_net.c
Compiling rpc_parse/parsen/smbmount
Compiling client/smbmnt.c
Linking bin/smbmnt
Compiling client/smbumount.c
Linking bin/smbumount
Compiling utils/nmblookup.c
Linking bin/nmblookup

If you encounter a problem when compiling, first check the Samba documentation to see if it is easily fixable. Another possibility is to search or post to the Samba mailing lists, which are given at the end of Chapter 12 and on the Samba home page. Most compilation issues are system-specific and almost always easy to overcome.

Now that the files have been compiled, you can install them into the directories you identified with the command:

# make install

If you happen to be upgrading, your old Samba files will be saved with the extension .old, and you can go back to that previous version with the command make revert. After doing a make install, you should copy the .old files (if they exist) to a new location or name. Otherwise, the next time you install Samba, the original .old will be overwritten without warning and you could lose your earlier version. If you configured Samba to use the default locations for files, the new files will be installed in the directories listed in Table 2-2. Remember that you need to perform the installation from an account that has write privileges on these target directories; this is typically the root account.

Table 2-2. Samba installation directories

Throughout the remainder of the book, we occasionally refer to the location of the main tree as /usr/local/samba. In most configurations, this is the base directory of the installed Samba package; however, it can vary from system to system .

TIP

Watch out if you've made /usr a read-only partition. You will want to put the logs, locks, and password files somewhere else.

Here is the installation that we performed on our machine. You can see that we used /usr/local/samba as the base directory for the distribution:

# make install 2>&1 | tee make-install.log
Using FLAGS =  -O  -Iinclude -I./include -I./ubiqx -I./smbwrapper -D_LARGEFILE64
_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_GNU_SOURCE  -DLOGFILEBASE="/usr/local/samba/va
r" -DCONFIGFILE="/usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf"

...(content omitted)...

The binaries are installed. You can restore the old binaries (if there
were any) using the command "make revert". You can uninstall the binaries
using the command "make uninstallbin" or "make uninstall" to uninstall
binaries, manpages and shell scripts.

...(content omitted)...

======================================================================
The SWAT files have been installed. Remember to read the swat/README
for information on enabling and using SWAT.
======================================================================

If the last message is about SWAT, you've successfully installed all the files. Congratulations! You now have Samba on your system!

Enabling SWAT

The Samba Web Administration Tool (SWAT) runs as a daemon under inetd or xinetd and provides a forms-based editor in your web browser for creating and modifying Samba's configuration file. For SWAT to work, entries must be added for it in the /etc/services and /etc/inetd.conf (or /etc/xinetd.d/swat) configuration files. To add the entries, follow these two steps:

1. Check your /etc/services file, and if it does not contain the following line, add it to the end of the file:

   swat   901/tcp

2. Now for inetd or xinetd. These are "Internet super daemons" that handle starting daemons on demand, instead of letting them sit around in memory consuming system resources. Most systems use inetd, but xinetd is also used in some versions of Unix, notably the Red Hat Linux (Versions 7 and newer) that we use in our examples. You can use the ps command to see which of the two your system is running.

For inetd, add a line to the /etc/inetd.conf file. (Check your inetd.conf manual page to see the exact format of the inetd.conf file if it differs from the following example.) Don't forget to change the path to the SWAT binary if you installed it in a different location from the default /usr/local/samba:

swat   stream  tcp  nowait  root  /usr/local/samba/bin/swat  swat

Then force inetd to reread its configuration file by sending it a SIGHUP (hangup) signal:

# /bin/kill -HUP -a inetd

Notice that we are using a version of the kill command that supports the -a option, so as to allow us to specify the process by name. On FreeBSD and Linux, you can use the killall command[2] as follows:

# killall -HUP inetd

If you are not running Linux or FreeBSD and your version of kill doesn't have the -a option, you will need to use the ps command to find the process ID and then supply that to kill:

# ps ax | grep inetd
  780 ?        S      0:00 inetd
 1981 pts/4    S      0:00 grep inetd                                         
# kill -HUP 780

If your system is using xinet, add a file named swat in your /etc/xinetd.d directory, containing the following:

# description: swat is the Samba Web Administration Tool, which
#       allows an administrator to configure Samba using a web
#       browser interface, with the URL http://localhost:901
service swat.
{
        socket_type             = stream
        wait                    = no
        protocol                = tcp
        only_from               = localhost
        user                    = root
        log_on_failure          += USERID
        server                  = /usr/local/samba/bin/swat
        port                    = 901
        disable                 = no
}

Then xinetd needs to be sent a signal[3] to make it reread its configuration files:

# /bin/kill -HUP -a xinetd

And that's pretty much it for the installation. Before you can start up Samba, however, you need to create a configuration file for it.

A Basic Samba Configuration File

The key to configuring Samba is its configuration file, smb.conf. This configuration file can be very simple or extremely complex, and the rest of this book is devoted to helping you get deeply personal with this file. For now, however, we'll show you how to set up a single file service, which will allow you to fire up the Samba daemons and see that everything is running as it should be. In later chapters, you will see how to configure Samba for more complicated and interesting tasks.

The installation process does not automatically create an smb.conf configuration file, although several example files are included in the Samba distribution. To test the server software, though, we'll use the following file, which you can create in a text editor. It should be named smb.conf and placed in the /usr/local/samba/lib directory:[4]

[global]
    workgroup = METRAN 
[test] 
    comment = For testing only, please
    path = /usr/local/samba/tmp
    read only = no
    guest ok = yes

This brief configuration file tells the Samba server to offer the /usr/local/samba/tmp directory on the server as an SMB share called test. The server also becomes part of the METRAN workgroup, of which each client must also be a part. If you have already chosen a name for your own workgroup, use the name of your workgroup instead of METRAN in the previous example. In case you are connecting your Samba system into an existing network and need to know the workgroup name, you can ask another system administrator or go to a Windows system in the workgroup and follow these instructions:

• Windows 95/98/Me/NT: open the Control Panel, then double-click the Network icon. Click the Identification tab, and look for the "Workgroup:" label.

• Windows 2000: open the Control Panel and double-click the System icon. Click the Network Identification tab. The workgroup name will appear below the computer name.

• Windows XP: open the Control Panel in Classic View mode and double-click the System icon. Then click the Computer Name tab.

We'll use the [test] share in the next chapter to set up the Windows clients. For now, you can complete the setup by performing the following commands as root on your Unix server:

# mkdir /usr/local/samba/tmp
# chmod 777 /usr/local/samba/tmp

You might also want to put a file or two in the /usr/local/samba/tmp directory so that after your Windows systems are initially configured, you will have something to use to check that everything works.

We should point out that in terms of system security, this is the worst setup possible. For the moment, however, we only wish to test Samba, so we'll leave security out of the picture. In addition, we will encounter some encrypted password issues with Windows clients later on, so this setup will afford us the least amount of headaches.

Using SWAT

Creating a configuration file with SWAT is even easier than writing a configuration file by hand. To invoke SWAT, use your web browser to connect to http://localhost:901, and log on as root with the root password, as shown in Figure 2-1.

Figure 2-1. SWAT login

After logging in, click the GLOBALS button at the top of the screen. You should see the Global Variables page shown in Figure 2-2.

Figure 2-2. SWAT Global Variables page

In this example, notice that SWAT retrieved the workgroup name from the smb.conf file that you created. (If it didn't, go back and perform that step correctly.) Make sure that the security field is set to USER.

If you are running Samba 2.2 and your Windows clients are at least Windows 98 or Windows NT 4 SP 3 or later versions, find encrypt passwords in the Security Options section and select yes.

The only other option you need to change from the menu is one determining which system on the LAN resolves NetBIOS addresses; this system is called the WINS server. At the very bottom of the page, set the wins support field to Yes, unless you already have a WINS server on your network. If you do, put the WINS server's IP address in the wins server field instead. Then return to the top of the screen, and press the Commit Changes button to write the changes out to the smb.conf file.

Next, click the SHARES icon. You should see a page similar to Figure 2-3. Select test (to the right of the Choose Share button), and click the Choose Share button. You will see the Share Parameters screen, as shown in Figure 2-3, with the comment and path fields filled in from your smb.conf file.

Figure 2-3. SWAT Share Parameters screen

If you specified that you want to use encrypted passwords on the GLOBALS page, click the PASSWORD button. Near the top of the screen, you will see the Server Password Management section. Enter your Unix username and password in the spaces, and click the Add New User button. This functions the same as the smbpasswd utility and creates an entry in the /usr/local/samba/private/smbpasswd file to allow you to authenticate from a Windows client.

Now click the VIEW button at the top, and SWAT shows you the following smb.conf file:

# Samba config file created using SWAT
# from localhost (127.0.0.1)
# Date: 2002/09/05 04:56:43

# Global parameters
        workgroup = METRAN
        encrypt passwords = Yes
        wins support = Yes

[test]
        comment = For testing only!
        path = /usr/local/samba/tmp
        read only = No

Once this configuration file is completed, you can skip the next step because the output of SWAT is guaranteed to be syntactically correct.

Firewall Configuration

As with any services that run on TCP/IP, the SMB networking services offered by Samba can be accessed from across the Internet unless your organization's firewall is properly configured. The following ports are used by Samba for SMB networking and SWAT:

Port 137

Used for NetBIOS network browsing

Port 138

Used for NetBIOS name service

Port 139

Used for file and printer sharing and other operations

Port 445

Used by Windows 2000/XP when NetBIOS over TCP/IP is disabled

Port 901

Used by SWAT

At the minimum, your organization's Internet firewall should shut down all the ports in the list to traffic in both directions. Do not assume that preventing incoming connections is sufficient; there are cracks that trick Windows clients into sending data out of the local area network and into the Internet by SMB protocol, even from a local network that uses private IP addresses not forwarded by routers. If you want SMB traffic to travel across the Internet to remote sites, the best way is to use a virtual private network (VPN). See the O'Reilly book, Virtual Private Networks, for more information on this subject.

In addition, you might wish to configure a firewall on the Samba host system to keep SMB packets from traveling further than necessary within your organization's network. For example, port 901 can be shut down for remote accesses so that SWAT can be run only on the Samba host system. If you are using Samba to serve only a fraction of the client systems within your organization, consider allowing SMB packets (i.e., packets on ports 137-139 and 445) to go to or come from only those clients.

For more information on configuring firewalls, see the O'Reilly book Building Internet Firewalls.

Starting the Samba Daemons

Two Samba processes, smbd and nmbd, need to be running for Samba to work correctly. There are three ways to start them:

• Manually

• Automatically, during system boot

• From inetd or xinetd

Automatic Startup

To have the Samba daemons started automatically when the system boots, you need to add the commands listed in the previous section to your standard Unix startup scripts. The exact method varies depending on the flavor of Unix you're using.

BSD Unix

With a BSD-style Unix, you need to append the following code to the rc.local file, which is typically found in the /etc or /etc/rc.d directories:

if [ -x /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd]; then
    echo "Starting smbd..."
    /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd -D
    echo "Starting nmbd..."
    /usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd -D
fi

This code is very simple: it checks to see if the smbd file exists and has execute permissions, and if it does, it starts up both of the Samba daemons on system boot.

System V Unix

With System V, things can get a little more complex. Depending on your Unix version, you might be able to get away with making a simple change to an rc.local file as with BSD Unix, but System V typically uses directories containing links to scripts that control daemons on the system. Hence, you need to instruct the system how to start and stop the Samba daemons. The first step to implement this is to modify the contents of the /etc/rc.d/init.d directory by adding something similar to the following shell script, which for this example we will name smb :

#!/bin/sh

# Check that the Samba configuration file exists
[ -f /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf ] || exit 0

start(  )
{
        echo -n "Starting SMB services: "
        /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd -D
        ERROR=$?
        echo

        echo -n "Starting NMB services: "
        /usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd -D
        ERROR2=$?
        if [ $ERROR2 -ne 0 ]
        then
                ERROR=1
        fi
        echo

        return $ERROR
}

stop(  )
{
        echo -n "Shutting down SMB services: "
        /bin/kill -TERM -a smbd
        ERROR=$?
        echo

        echo -n "Shutting down NMB services: "
        /bin/kill -TERM -a nmbd
        ERROR2=$?
        if [ $ERROR2 -ne 0 ]
        then
                ERROR=1
        fi
        echo

        return $ERROR
}

case "$1" in
  start)
        start
        ;;
  stop)
        stop
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop}"
        exit 1
esac

exit $?

With this script, you can start and stop smbd and nmbd like this:

# /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb start
Starting SMB services:
Starting NMB services:
# ps ax | grep mbd
 1268 ?        S      0:00 /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd -D
 1270 ?        S      0:00 /usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd -D
 1465 pts/2    S      0:00 grep mbd
# /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb stop
Shutting down SMB services:
Shutting down NMB services:

If you are having trouble writing a startup script for your system, check to see if there is a packaged release of Samba (available from your Unix vendor or the Samba FTP site). If so, you might be able to extract a startup script from it to use as a starting point. Typically, this script doesn't change much (if at all) from release to release, so using a script from an older Samba version should not be a problem. Another possibility is to check the packaging directory in the Samba source distribution. In that directory, there are subdirectories for many Unix versions in which you can find a startup script for those versions. Even if your version isn't included, you can probably find a startup script for a similar version to use as a starting point.

Finally, we need to add symbolic links to the smb script in the /etc/rc.d/rcX.d directories:

# ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S35smb
# ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S35smb

# ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb /etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K35smb
# ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb /etc/rc.d/rc1.d/K35smb
# ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/K35smb
# ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb /etc/rc.d/rc4.d/K35smb
# ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb /etc/rc.d/rc6.d/K35smb

The first two commands, with link names starting with an "S", cause Samba to be started when entering runlevels 3 or 5, which are the runlevels in which network file sharing (NFS) is normally enabled. The second group of commands, with link names starting with a "K", cause Samba to be shut down when entering any of the other runlevels (0, 1, 2, 4, or 6).

The links starting with "S" are used to start the daemons, and the links starting with "K" are used for killing them. When the runlevel is changed, the links starting with "K" in the corresponding directory (e.g., the rc3.d directory for runlevel 3) are executed, followed by the links starting with "S". If we wanted, we could have Samba restarted when switching between runlevels 3 and 5 by adding a K35smb link to each rc3.d and rc5.d directory.

The number after the K or S in the link names is used to set the order in which all the daemons with links in the directory are started or killed off. Get a long listing of the rc3.d or rc5.d directories to see how this is set up on your system. We use 35 to match the behavior of Red Hat's Samba RPM package. The important thing is to make sure when starting Samba that all services it requires are started before it. When shutting down, it is a good idea to shut down Samba before services it requires to avoid excess error messages in the log files, but the order is not as crucial.

Darwin and Mac OS X

An installation of Samba is bundled with the Darwin distribution, which is included in Mac OS X.[5]

The Samba daemons are started during system boot by the script /System/Library/StartupItems/Samba/Samba. To trigger the execution of this script, edit the file /etc/hostconfig and change the SMBSERVER parameter to look like this:

SMBSERVER=-YES-

On Mac OS X, the graphical user interface (GUI) provides an alternative to using the command line. Launch the System Preferences application, and select Sharing (see Figure 2-4). Under the Services tab, turn on Windows File Sharing. This will make the aforementioned change to /etc/hostconfig and immediately execute the startup item.

Figure 2-4. Mac OS X sharing preferences

If you decide to install Samba yourself on Mac OS X, it's best not to stomp on the installation provided with the OS. Use the procedures detailed earlier in this chapter to install the software into /usr/local/samba or some other area unaffected by OS upgrades. (Remember to set up users with smbpasswd if you're using encrypted passwords, as described earlier in this chapter. This step is handled automatically with entries in /var/db/samba/hash if you're using the built-in server on Mac OS X.) Once you've got that working, you can edit the Samba startup item script to refer to your installation, like this:

    #!/bin/sh
    # Start Samba

    . /etc/rc.common

    if [ "${SMBSERVER:=-NO-}" = "-YES-" ]; then
        ConsoleMessage "Starting SMB server"

        if [ -f /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf ]; then
            /usr/local/samba/bin/smbd -D
            /usr/local/samba/bin/nmbd -D
        fi
    fi

However, beware of OS updates, which can wipe out your changes. One solution is to make the script immutable, like this:

# chflags uchg /System/Library/StartupItems/Samba/Samba

Testing automatic startup

If you can afford a few minutes of downtime, reboot your system and again use the ps command to check that the smbd and nmbd daemons are running. And if you are managing a 24/7 server, we highly recommend that you find some downtime in which to reboot and perform this check. Otherwise, your next unscheduled downtime might surprise you with a mysterious absence of SMB networking services when the system comes up again!

Testing the Samba Daemons

We're nearly done with the Samba server setup. All that's left to do is to make sure everything is working as we think it should. A convenient way to do this is to use the smbclient program to examine what the server is offering to the network. If everything is set up properly, you should be able to do the following:

# /usr/local/samba/bin/smbclient -U% -L localhost
added interface ip=172.16.1.1 bcast=172.16.1.255 nmask=255.255.255.0
Domain=[METRAN] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 2.2.6]

        Sharename      Type      Comment
        ---------      ----      -------
        test           Disk      For testing only, please
        IPC$           IPC       IPC Service (Samba 2.2.6)
        ADMIN$         Disk      IPC Service (Samba 2.2.6)
        
        Server               Comment
        ---------            -------
        TOLTEC               Samba 2.2.6 on toltec

        Workgroup            Master
        ---------            -------
        METRAN               TOLTEC

If there is a problem, don't panic! Try to start the daemons manually, and check the system output or the debug files at /usr/local/samba/var/log.smb to see if you can determine what happened. If you think it might be a more serious problem, skip to Chapter 12 for help on troubleshooting the Samba daemons.

If it worked, congratulations! You now have successfully set up the Samba server with a disk share. It's a simple one, but we can use it to set up and test the Windows 95/98/Me and NT/2000/XP clients in the next chapter. Then we will start making it more interesting by adding services such as home directories, printers, and security, and by seeing how to integrate the server into a larger Windows domain.