Note: this may be is out of date. The current version is here: Brian's Samba quickstart guide.

1. Install RedHat Linux 7.x
   • Choose Custom and make sure you include SMB server
   • SWAT (the Samba Web Administration Tool) includes its own webserver so you don't have to specify 'httpd' (webserver) if youw ant to use that tool.
2. Log in as root, type setup, and choose System Services.
3. Enable smb. (This will cause smbd to start at boot.)
4. Edit the file /etc/samba/smb.conf and change the workgroup name to match your workgroup's name.
5. Issue testparm to make verify the validity of your smb.conf file.
6. Now, either a) reboot or b) issue service smb start. If you change smb.conf further, restart the service with service smb restart. (The four options to use with 'service' are start, stop, restart, and status. There might be more, actually, but those are the only four I know of.)
7. Now, just add users with the 'smbadduser' command. The syntax is smbadduser UNIX username:Windows username so assuming you've got a pretty small shop, it shouldn't be too hard to make sure that each user has a Windows login name that matches an account on your Linux server. For me, for example, it's just a matter of saying smbadduser brian:brian. Some text will fly by and you will be prompted to enter a password twice. There are, of course, ways to automate this, or take advantage of an already existing list, but for now, just add each user by hand, first with Linux's useradd command, then with smbadduser.
8. Now you can connect to the server by mapping a network drive to \\ip.address\username. (In my case, on a system I just built, it was \\192.168.0.5\brian.) This will mount your home directory (/home/username) as a drive in Windows.
9. There is much more that can be done. The most common thing is to assign a NETBIOS name to the server. Also, you can create common shared areas, share printers, have users added automatically, have their passwords synced with their local UNIX passwords, etc. SAMBA can even be a primary domain controller. However, if you just want to get a new box with a big shared drive up and running, this is all that needs to be done.
10. (what follows is under construction)
11. Everyone likes PDFs, right? Here's how to make a virtual network printer that you can print to from Windows that will make a PDF for you.
    • Create a new directory to store the PDFs, like /home/pdf
    • Share this directory out with these lines in your smb.conf:
      

      [pdf]
      	comment = PDFs
      	path = /home/pdf
      	write list = @users
      	force group = @users
      	create mask = 0777
      	directory mask = 0777
      	guest ok = yes
      

    • Create the virtual network printer/PDF-maker:

      [ps2pdf]
      	comment = PostScript to PDF Print Engine
      	print ok = yes
      	guest ok = yes
      	path = /home/pdf
      	print command = /usr/bin/ps2pdf %s; rm %s
      	create mask = 0777
      	force create mode = 0777
      

    • Once again, issue testparm as root and make sure it's OK. Then, issue service smb restart to activate the new shares.
    • Map a new network drive to \\your.ip.here\pdf
    • Set up the new virtual printer in Windows. Start with Start Menu —>Settings—>Printers, add new printer, Network Printer, \\your.ip.here\ps2pdf, next. It will complain that no driver is available and ask if you want to choose one. Answer 'yes', then click 'HP' in the left column and pick 'HP Color LaserJet 5/5M PS' in the right column.
    • It should now be happy. Set it as your default printer if you want and tell it to print a test page. A strangely-named .pdf file should quickly show up in the drive you just mapped to 'pdf.' Pretty neat, eh? It's a bit limited. Onscreen, non-standard fonts (anything besides Courier, Helvetica, Times, etc.) will be bitmapped, as will vector shapes. However, everything should print OK, since the bitmaps it produces are high-res. On the other hand, it's a free PDF, so quit complaining. :-)

[Brian Ashe's home page] [brianashe.com/linux]