iX 6.5)

Chapter 7 87

Samba/iX Services

Overview of Samba/iX

When this program is run on the HP 3000, it will be acting as a

client. It is a command line program and offers an interface similar

to that of the FTP program. Operations include things like “getting”

ﬁles from the server to the local machine, “putting” ﬁles from the

local machine to the server, retrieving directory information from the

server, etc.

• SMB.CONF: The SMB.CONF ﬁle is a conﬁguration ﬁle of the

Samba/iX suite which contains runtime conﬁguration information

for both SMBD and NMBD.

This ﬁle consists of sections and parameters. Each section in the

conﬁguration ﬁle corresponds to a service. The special sections are

[global], [homes] and [printers]. The [global] section is used to set

global conﬁguration options that apply to the server as a whole. The

[homes] section is designed to grant access to all users home

directories and the entries in

[printers] section correspond to the

print services of the Samba/iX server.

• TESTPARM: This is a test program to validate the contents of the

SMB.CONF conﬁguration ﬁle.

If this program reports no problems, you can use the conﬁguration

ﬁle with conﬁdence that SMBD will successfully load the

conﬁguration ﬁle.

• TESTPRNS: This tool checks whether the printer name is valid for

the services provided by SMBD.

SMB Protocol

SMB, which stands for Server Message Block, is a protocol for sharing

ﬁles, printers, serial ports, and communication abstractions, such as

named pipes and mail slots, between computers.

SMB is a request/response protocol and it is implemented on top of the

NetBIOS API, see Figure 7-2. It plays the role of session, presentation,

and a part of application layer of the OSI stack. SMB can be used over

TCP/IP, NetBEUI, and IPX/SPX. In the case of TCP/IP or NetBEUI, the

NetBIOS API is being used. Samba/iX uses SMB over TCP/IP.