Networking Linux and Windows together?

OK, this, believe it or not is the first thread I've ever started since I've become a member. (In 2001) Please bear with me on this one. I have a simple question and I searched the threads and was unable to find anything specific. (It was likely staring me in the face) Anyways, on to the question:

I have three computers hooked up to a 4 port SMC Barricade 7004ABR which goes out to the net. All three machines are running Windows ME which I can network together just fine, only my machine is dual boot with Red Hat Linux 8.0 and I am wondering how I would go about getting Linux to see the other two Windows ME machines and be able to connect, and share files, etc etc. My Linux box has a RealTek 10/100 PCI ethernet card on eth0, and the router assigns me a specific IP based on my MAC address. (192.168.2.20 is what is gives me) The routers local IP is 192.168.2.1, and the other two windows machines are given an address via DHCP. Note I do not want to use my Linux box as a router or firewall, which is the only thing I could find info on.

Does anyone have a simple way to network my Linux box to the other windows machines? (Sorry, I'm a Linux newbie!)
Any help would be greaty appreciated, and any suggestions how to make my future posts better, let me know! :p

Thanks
Dave

This was a fun project!

Here are some of the sources that I used.

Samba
Unofficial Samba howto
Samba howto
Linux and Windows

The bottom two links were the most helpful to me.

If you have any specific questions... post them or send me a PM. I'll help as much as I can.
I've helped many times configuring Samba. Quite fun... I love it.

Indeed like phishphreek80 said, what you need is samba. But, be aware, that for any security admin, samba is the worst nightmare. Its alot of work to maintain a secure network using samba, and can very easily compromise your entire networks security. Good luck though.

Cheers.

dstevens,

If you're a linux-newbie (as am I), this can be very helpful. Helped me out a few times.
There's also a chapter on networking.

http://tille.soti.org/training/tldp/

Hope you like it,

Greetz,

if you want something REALLY easy to use... try using Komba2 - it's a GUI for Samba and is so easy to set up even I can do it :D

d/l for Suse and RH from

http://zeus.fh-brandenburg.de/~schwa.../download.php3

I'm not sure if this only works with KDE or not... but if it's of any interest I'm currently using it with KDE on Mandrake 8.1 - oh and make sure you use ver 7.3

OK, thanks for the help, I remember hearing and reading of Samba, but was unaware of its purpose. I will download and try to install the rpms for RH8. The links are helpful as well, thanks Zonewalker, Shrekkie and phishphreek80.

instronics, what kind of security issues? I guess it could open up a bunch of ports and perhaps share my entire hardrive to the world if set up inproperly, but can't you configure it to deny all connections from outside the network? And you can shut it down when you don't need it on right? Perhaps I should really sit down soon and learn iptables :p Besides, I am behind a router, so that should protect me from most s-kiddie attacks from what I've been told by some networkin ppl. (Ever since I set it up, I have never had an alert on the software firewalls on the windows machines since, before, I would get an attempt every day or two.) And I don't think I'm a big target, I don't have any really important files, like business records, etc, since its a home network. But then again, some ppl don't have lives I guess...

Quote:

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instronics, what kind of security issues? I guess it could open up a bunch of ports and perhaps share my entire hardrive to the world if set up inproperly, but can't you configure it to deny all connections from outside the network?

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Well, the security itsn't too bad to setup on it. You can restrict it to your local LAN and anyone who wants to access is going to need a user id and password. I would recommend using the same user names and passwords on the m$ boxes and on the linux box. That way when they want to access a shared drive, they only have to enter their password once... when they login to the m$ box. You can restrict it to certain IPs or certain computer names if you want. I have a huge book called Samba Unleashed... it is a lot of reading, but great for reference. I think I picked it up for about US$20 at a book outlet.

Unless someone breaks into a box on your network... samba is pretty safe IMO.
Do you open up your network to the outside? IE: are you running a server of any kind that people access from the web? If no, then I wouldn't worry too much. It is easy to understand and easy to configure. You can setup the security on a per user basis and use it as your print server too.

All in all, I love it. I would use linux/samba as my file/print server over m$ anyday, if the choice is mine.

Hello dstevens1958.

When i said it was a nightmare, i meant that it takes alot more of maintaining todo. The more work that arises, the higher the chance of "over seeing" something, hense: Danger. Im not saying to not use samba, just be sure to know what you are doing. If setup poorly, its very dangerous. Have a look at buqtrac at the possibilities that exist to mess around with on samba. I do not use it at work due to the fact that im scared to endanger my network, (its not essential for my network too). But dont let that scare you. Samba is widely used and gets the job done. Good luck.

Cheers.

Phishphreek,

I also am going to install Samba, so if I'm havin'problems I'm going to PM you too, :p (if you don't mind).

Instronics,
If you've a network behind a good router with a good firewall , I suppose the security will be alright. or do you suggest an extra firewall aside, maybe iptables ?
Like to hear your answer.

Greetz,

Hiya shrekkie.

Indeed there is some security if you have the whole setup behind a firewall. But a firewall is not enough to be able to say that you network is safe. Remember, firewalls can be "fooled" in many ways. I really dont want to scare of the idea of using samba. Just, its against my personal policy. In my network i do have a dedicated firewall running iptables, but a firewall is not enough for security. A reason why i choose not to use samba is because samba aswell as any other software containts its shares of bugs and security problems, meaning for the admin that there is more updateing, patching, work to be done. I try to follow the golden rule of setting up as LITTLE as possible. Samba would just be a bit too risky for me. And since i do carry a load of responsibility for our network, i choose to live without it. The result is a bit more expensive in my case (more equipment). But i can go home and be less worried in general that way. Please do not missunderstand me, the concept of samba is great. Just be sure to tighten everything as well as possible. Always think of a situation what if your firewall fails? What other security is in place to decrease the loss of data or downtime? In what ways can the company be harmed? Security must contain a policy of minimum damage incase the firewall or any other part of the security goes down. Never rely only on a single security setup. Nowadays the more applications you use, the more ports they open so that they can run, the more knowledge that goes around, the bigger the danger is. A solution is to setup security in a way, that if the firewall fails, the network must be safe until the problems are fixed. That could mean system downtime, which for many people is not a valid solution. If you setup enough real good security, then samba will help you in your everday life. But also remember, that samba relies on other security a great deal. The same applies not only for samba, but also for NIS and NFS. Its always the same story. I admitt that in a large company with many computers, its not possible to work without samba, NIS, or NFS. Alone the fact that passwords get sent over the LAN. Yuck. Im lucky due to the fact that we dont have many computers, so i get along without it. Like my computer "sensei" used too say....choose your poison. :cool:

If theres anything else i can help with, please let me know :)

Cheers.

Hey guys,

I also found these :
A nice tut by souleman : http://www.antionline.com/showthread...ighlight=samba

and a 'tut' with a nice link provided by Bad_Karma that could be used :
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...ighlight=samba

Greetz,

Sorry for taking a while, I've been really busy at school and work lately. Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone who replied and offered me advice, no doubt I will likely have to PM some of you when I go to *hopefully* set it up this weekend. (Told you I was busy :p)
I really appreciate the help and input, and long live AO!

Hey I just did this last night on my home computer with a window98 computer. I run Mandrake 9.0 and wanted to grab
the files off of the windows box since it's sort of like my file server. I installed samba fromt he mandrake 9.0 cd it worked fine
then on the linux I went to cd /usr/sbin and then threw this command

Code:

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mount -t smbfs -o username=tridge,password=foobar //fjall/test /data/test

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I went to the /data/test directory and sure enought my windows files where there and on windows I just typed the computer name in internet explorer it prompted me for my username and password. It then displayed a folder of my linux home drive.
I was surprised everything worked the first time but that's all I did. Hope it helps you out :)