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10<H2><A NAME="s1">1. What is Samba?</A></H2>
11
12<P>
13<A NAME="WhatIsSamba"></A> 
14</P>
15<P>See the 
16<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#introduction">meta FAQ introduction</A> if you don't have any idea what Samba does.</P>
17<P>Samba has many features that are not supported in other CIFS and SMB
18implementations, all of which are commercial. It approaches some
19problems from a different angle.</P>
20<P>Some of its features include:
21<UL>
22<LI>extremely dynamic runtime configuration</LI>
23<LI>host as well as username/password security</LI>
24<LI>scriptable SMB client</LI>
25<LI>automatic home directory exporting</LI>
26<LI>automatic printer exporting</LI>
27<LI>intelligent dead connection timeouts</LI>
28<LI>guest connections</LI>
29</UL>
30</P>
31<P>Look at the 
32<A HREF="samba-man-index.html">manual pages</A> included with the package for a full list of
33features. The components of the suite are (in summary):</P>
34<P>
35<DL>
36
37<DT><B>smbd</B><DD><P>the SMB server. This handles actual connections from clients,
38doing all the interfacing with the 
39<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#DomainModeSecurity">authentication database</A> for file, permission and username work.</P>
40
41<DT><B>nmbd</B><DD><P>the NetBIOS name server, which helps clients locate servers,
42maintaining the 
43<A HREF="Samba-meta-FAQ.html#BrowseAndDomainDefs">authentication database</A> doing the browsing work and managing
44domains as this capability is being built into Samba.</P>
45
46<DT><B>smbclient</B><DD><P>the scriptable commandline SMB client program.
47Useful for automated work, printer filters and testing purposes. It is
48more CIFS-compliant than most commercial implementations. Note that this
49is not a filesystem. The Samba team does not supply a network filesystem
50driver, although the smbfs filesystem for Linux is derived from
51smbclient code.</P>
52
53<DT><B>smbrun</B><DD><P>a little 'glue' program to help the server run
54external programs.</P>
55
56<DT><B>testprns</B><DD><P>a program to test server access to printers</P>
57
58<DT><B>testparms</B><DD><P>a program to test the Samba configuration file
59for correctness</P>
60
61<DT><B>smb.conf</B><DD><P>the Samba configuration file</P>
62
63<DT><B>examples</B><DD><P>many examples have been put together for the different
64operating systems that Samba supports.</P>
65
66<DT><B>Documentation!</B><DD><P>DON'T neglect to read it - you will save a great
67deal of time!</P>
68
69</DL>
70</P>
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