Samba server overview and quick Configuration Guide (1)

BKJIA special article] There are many ways to share resources in Linux. Samba server is the most common one. The Samba server allows Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 operating systems. Users can access Linux Hosts in the LAN, just as easily as accessing network neighbors. 1. The server in the figure runs the Samba server program. The operating system is Linux. This server provides file services to other Windows systems in the LAN through Samba. At the same time, a shared printer is connected to the Linux server, and the printer also provides printing services to other Windows users in the LAN through Samba.

Figure 1 LAN for file and print services provided by Samba

1. How Samba works

The working principle of Samba is to enable the communication protocol NETBIOSNETwork Basic Input/Output System and SMAServer Message Block for Windows operating systems) the two protocols run on the TCP/IP communication protocol and use the NETBEUI protocol of Windows to enable Linux to be seen by Windows on the network neighbor. Among them, the most important is the SMBServer Message Block protocol, which is widely used in all Windows operating systems such as Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. Samba is the implementation of SMB servers on UNIX-like systems. Currently, it can run on almost all UNIX variants.

2. Functions of the Samba server

File Sharing and print sharing are the main functions of Samba. Samba also implements related control and management functions to facilitate file sharing and print sharing. Specifically, Samba provides the following functions:

After the Samba server is installed and configured, Linux can provide file and print services to Windows users in the LAN.

3. SMB protocol

After NetBIOS appears, Microsoft uses NetBIOS to implement a network file and print service system. This system sets a file sharing protocol based on NetBIOS, which Microsoft calls SMBServer Message Block. This protocol is used by Microsoft in their Lan Manager and Windows Server systems, and Windows systems all include client software for this protocol, so this Protocol has a great impact on Lan systems.

With the popularity of the Internet, Microsoft wants to extend this Protocol to the Internet, becoming a standard for computers on the Internet to share data with each other. It sorts out the existing SMB protocol with few technical documents and renames it CIFSCommon Internet File System ). Therefore, to integrate Windows and UNIX computers, the best way is to install software that supports SMB/CIFS in UNIX, so that Windows customers do not need to change the settings, you can use resources on UNIX computers just like using Windows NT servers.

The following describes how to install, configure, And Start and Stop Samba.