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Networking Windows and Linux with Samba

I have a network via LAN with three computers. Two of them run Windows 2000 and the third runs Linux. I have only one CD-ROM in server 2000 and want to share it with Linux. How can I set this up?

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If you have both Windows and Linux PCs on a LAN and wish to share both devices and files, I would recommend Samba. Samba is a software package that gives system and network people the flexibility to make real choices in terms of setup, configuration, and choosing all types of systems and equipment, on different operating systems. It has been around since 1992, and can be run on UNIX or Linux, using TCP/IP, which allows the host interact to with a Microsoft Windows client or server as if it is a Windows file and print server, or client.

First, you'll need to share your Windows Server. From "My Computer," right click on the CD-ROM and choose "sharing." Create a share name and then configure Samba on the Linux Server.

To configure a Samba share directory on your Linux system, add the following section to the share section in the smb.conf file. With file sharing, the following statement from the config file ( /etc/samba/smb.conf) would allow users "Larry," "Curly" and "Moe" to access the directory that you need.

valid users = larry curly mo
public = no
writable = yes

After installing and configuring Samba, you can use the smbmount command to get access to your system.

Something like this will do:
smbmount //winclient/cdrom /mnt/win-cdrom -o
username=theusername

For more information on installing samba, see www.samba.org or look at this Samba learning guide.

This was first published in May 2005

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