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