1This is the release version of Samba, the free SMB and CIFS client and
2server for UNIX and other operating systems. Samba is maintained by
3the Samba Team, who support the original author, Andrew Tridgell.
4
5>>>> Please read THE WHOLE of this file as it gives important information
6>>>> about the configuration and use of Samba.
7
8NOTE: Installation instructions may be found in
9 docs/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/install.html
10
11This software is freely distributable under the GNU public license, a
12copy of which you should have received with this software (in a file
13called COPYING).
14
15
16WHAT IS SMB/CIFS?
17=================
18
19This is a big question.
20
21The very short answer is that it is the protocol by which a lot of
22PC-related machines share files and printers and other information
23such as lists of available files and printers. Operating systems that
24support this natively include Windows 9x, Windows NT (and derivatives),
25OS/2, Mac OS X and Linux. Add on packages that achieve the same
26thing are available for DOS, Windows 3.1, VMS, Unix of all kinds,
27MVS, and more. Some Web Browsers can speak this protocol as well
28(smb://). Alternatives to SMB include Netware, NFS, Appletalk,
29Banyan Vines, Decnet etc; many of these have advantages but none are
30both public specifications and widely implemented in desktop machines
31by default.
32
33The Common Internet File system (CIFS) is what the new SMB initiative
34is called. For details watch http://samba.org/cifs.
35
36
37WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO USE SMB?
38==============================
39
401. Many people want to integrate their Microsoft desktop clients
41 with their Unix servers.
42
432. Others want to integrate their Microsoft (etc) servers with Unix
44 servers. This is a different problem to integrating desktop
45 clients.
46
473. Others want to replace protocols like NFS, DecNet and Novell NCP,
48 especially when used with PCs.
49
50
51WHAT CAN SAMBA DO?
52==================
53
54Please refer to the WHATSNEW.txt included with this README for
55a list of features in the latest Samba release.
56
57Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does.
58For many networks this can be simply summarized by "Samba provides
59a complete replacement for Windows NT, Warp, NFS or Netware servers."
60
61- a SMB server, to provide Windows NT and LAN Manager-style file and print
62 services to SMB clients such as Windows 95, Warp Server, smbfs and others.
63
64- a Windows NT 4.0 Domain Controller replacement.
65
66- a file/print server that can act as a member of a Windows NT 4.0
67 or Active Directory domain.
68
69- a NetBIOS (rfc1001/1002) nameserver, which amongst other things gives
70 browsing support. Samba can be the master browser on your LAN if you wish.
71
72- a ftp-like SMB client so you can access PC resources (disks and
73 printers) from UNIX, Netware, and other operating systems
74
75- a tar extension to the client for backing up PCs
76
77- limited command-line tool that supports some of the NT administrative
78 functionality, which can be used on Samba, NT workstation and NT server.
79
80For a much better overview have a look at the web site at
81http://samba.org/samba, and browse the user survey.
82
83Related packages include:
84
85- smbfs, a Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount remote SMB
86filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included as standard with
87Linux 2.0 and later.
88
89- cifsvfs, a more advanced Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount
90remote SMB filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included
91as standard with Linux 2.5 and later.
92
93
94
95CONTRIBUTIONS
96=============
97
98If you want to contribute to the development of the software then
99please join the mailing list. The Samba team accepts patches
100(preferably in "diff -u" format, see http://samba.org/samba/devel/
101for more details) and are always glad to receive feedback or
102suggestions to the address samba@lists.samba.org. More information
103on the various Samba mailing lists can be found at http://lists.samba.org/.
104
105You can also get the Samba sourcecode straight from the Subversion tree - see
106http://samba.org/samba/subversion.html.
107
108You could also send hardware/software/money/jewelry or pre-paid pizza
109vouchers directly to Andrew. The pizza vouchers would be especially
110welcome, in fact there is a special field in the survey for people who
111have paid up their pizza :-)
112
113If you like a particular feature then look through the Subversion change-log
114(on the web at http://websvn.samba.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi) and see
115who added it, then send them an email.
116
117Remember that free software of this kind lives or dies by the response
118we get. If no one tells us they like it then we'll probably move onto
119something else. However, as you can see from the user survey quite a lot of
120people do seem to like it at the moment :-)
121
122
123MORE INFO
124=========
125
126DOCUMENTATION
127-------------
128
129There is quite a bit of documentation included with the package,
130including man pages, and lots of .html files with hints and useful
131info. This is also available from the web page. There is a growing
132collection of information under docs/.
133
134A list of Samba documentation in languages other than English is
135available on the web page.
136
137If you would like to help with the documentation (and we _need_ help!)
138then have a look at the mailing list samba-docs, archived at
139http://lists.samba.org/listinfo/samba-docs/
140
141
142MAILING LIST
143------------
144
145Please do NOT send subscription/unsubscription requests to the lists!
146
147There is a mailing list for discussion of Samba. For details go to
148<http://lists.samba.org/> or send mail to <samba-subscribe@lists.samba.org>
149
150There is also an announcement mailing list where new versions are
151announced. To subscribe go to <http://lists.samba.org/> or send mail
152to <samba-announce-subscribe@lists.samba.org>. All announcements also
153go to the samba list, so you only need to be on one.
154
155For details of other Samba mailing lists and for access to archives, see
156<http://lists.samba.org/>
157
158
159MAILING LIST ETIQUETTE
160----------------------
161
162A few tips when submitting to this or any mailing list.
163
1641. Make your subject short and descriptive. Avoid the words "help" or
165 "Samba" in the subject. The readers of this list already know that
166 a) you need help, and b) you are writing about samba (of course,
167 you may need to distinguish between Samba PDC and other file
168 sharing software). Avoid phrases such as "what is" and "how do
169 i". Some good subject lines might look like "Slow response with
170 Excel files" or "Migrating from Samba PDC to NT PDC".
171
1722. If you include the original message in your reply, trim it so that
173 only the relevant lines, enough to establish context, are
174 included. Chances are (since this is a mailing list) we've already
175 read the original message.
176
1773. Trim irrelevant headers from the original message in your
178 reply. All we need to see is a) From, b) Date, and c) Subject. We
179 don't even really need the Subject, if you haven't changed
180 it. Better yet is to just preface the original message with "On
181 [date] [someone] wrote:".
182
1834. Please don't reply to or argue about spam, spam filters or viruses
184 on any Samba lists. We do have a spam filtering system that is
185 working quite well thank you very much but occasionally unwanted
186 messages slip through. Deal with it.
187
1885. Never say "Me too." It doesn't help anyone solve the
189 problem. Instead, if you ARE having the same problem, give more
190 information. Have you seen something that the other writer hasn't
191 mentioned, which may be helpful?
192
1936. If you ask about a problem, then come up with the solution on your
194 own or through another source, by all means post it. Someone else
195 may have the same problem and is waiting for an answer, but never
196 hears of it.
197
1987. Give as much *relevant* information as possible such as Samba
199 release number, OS, kernel version, etc...
200
2018. RTFM. Google. groups.google.com.
202
203
204NEWS GROUP
205----------
206
207You might also like to look at the usenet news group comp.protocols.smb
208as it often contains lots of useful info and is frequented by lots of
209Samba users. The newsgroup was initially setup by people on the Samba
210mailing list. It is not, however, exclusive to Samba, it is a forum for
211discussing the SMB protocol (which Samba implements). The samba list
212is gatewayed to this newsgroup.
213
214
215WEB SITE
216--------
217
218A Samba WWW site has been setup with lots of useful info. Connect to:
219
220http://samba.org/samba/
221
222As well as general information and documentation, this also has searchable
223archives of the mailing list and a user survey that shows who else is using
224this package. Have you registered with the survey yet? :-)
225
226