Samba is a popular open source software package that
provides file and print services for Microsoft® Windows®
clients. Such clients can connect to and use FreeBSD filespace as if it was a local disk
drive, or FreeBSD printers as if they were local printers.
Samba software packages should be included on your FreeBSD
installation media. If you did not install Samba when you
first installed FreeBSD, then you can install it from the net/samba3 port or package.
A default Samba configuration file is installed as /usr/local/share/examples/samba/smb.conf.default. This file must be
copied to /usr/local/etc/smb.conf and customized before Samba can be used.
The smb.conf file contains runtime configuration information
for Samba, such as definitions of the printers and “file
system shares” that you would like to share with Windows clients. The Samba package
includes a web based tool called swat which provides a simple
way of configuring the smb.conf file.
The Samba Web Administration Tool (SWAT) runs as a daemon from inetd. Therefore, the following line in /etc/inetd.conf should be uncommented before swat can be used to configure Samba:
swat stream tcp nowait/400 root /usr/local/sbin/swat swat
As explained in Example 27-1,
the inetd configuration must be reloaded after this
configuration file is changed.
Once swat has been enabled in inetd.conf, you can use a browser to connect to https://localhost:901. You will first have
to log on with the system root account.
Once you have successfully logged on to the main Samba
configuration page, you can browse the system documentation, or begin by clicking on the
tab. The
section corresponds to the variables that are set in the [global] section of /usr/local/etc/smb.conf.
Whether you are using swat or editing /usr/local/etc/smb.conf directly, the first directives you are
likely to encounter when configuring Samba are:
- workgroup
-
NT Domain-Name or Workgroup-Name for the computers that will be accessing this
server.
- netbios name
-
This sets the NetBIOS name by which a Samba server is
known. By default it is the same as the first component of the host's DNS name.
- server string
-
This sets the string that will be displayed with the net view
command and some other networking tools that seek to display descriptive text about the
server.
Two of the most important settings in /usr/local/etc/smb.conf are the security model chosen, and the
backend password format for client users. The following directives control these
options:
- security
-
The two most common options here are security = share and security = user. If your clients use usernames that are the same as
their usernames on your FreeBSD machine then you will want to use user level security.
This is the default security policy and it requires clients to first log on before they
can access shared resources.
In share level security, client do not need to log onto the server with a valid
username and password before attempting to connect to a shared resource. This was the
default security model for older versions of Samba.
- passdb backend
-
Samba has several different backend authentication models.
You can authenticate clients with LDAP, NIS+, a SQL database, or a modified password
file. The default authentication method is smbpasswd, and that
is all that will be covered here.
Assuming that the default smbpasswd backend is used, the /usr/local/private/smbpasswd file must be created to allow Samba to authenticate clients. If you would like to give your
UNIX® user accounts access from Windows clients, use the following command:
# smbpasswd -a username
Note: Since Samba 3.0.23c, the actual directory for
authentication files is /usr/local/etc/samba. The recommended
backend is now tdbsam, and the following command should be used
to add user accounts:
# pdbedit -a -u username
Please see the Official Samba HOWTO for additional information about configuration
options. With the basics outlined here, you should have everything you need to start
running Samba.
The net/samba3 port adds a new startup script, which can be used to
control Samba. To enable this script, so that it can be used
for example to start, stop or restart Samba, add the following
line to the /etc/rc.conf file:
samba_enable="YES"
Or, for fine grain control:
nmbd_enable="YES"
smbd_enable="YES"
Note: This will also configure Samba to
automatically start at system boot time.
It is possible then to start Samba at any time by
typing:
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/samba start
Starting SAMBA: removing stale tdbs :
Starting nmbd.
Starting smbd.
Please refer to Section 11.7 for more information
about using rc scripts.
Samba actually consists of three separate daemons. You
should see that both the nmbd and smbd daemons are started by the samba
script. If you enabled winbind name resolution services in smb.conf, then you will also see that the winbindd daemon is started.
You can stop Samba at any time by typing :
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/samba stop
Samba is a complex software suite with functionality that
allows broad integration with Microsoft Windows networks. For more information about functionality
beyond the basic installation described here, please see https://www.samba.org.
