general questions for CIFS

[Victor Bao]

Hi, I'm going to setup an HP box as cifs server for windows NT users but I'm new to CIFS/9000. Could anybody help me out for below questions ? My up level team want to know what CIFS can provide before I've a chance to try. I don't want to over commit.

1. Beside installtion and configuration of cifs/9000 on HP server, do I need to install or configure anything on Windows side before a user can brows the content of CIFS server ?
2. As I saw from document, the client can be windows 95/98/NT/2000. Is there any function difference between 95/98 and NT/2000 clients ?
3. The cifs server can have domain/server/user/share level secerity. Does this apply to all kinds of client above ? Any recommendation for security level selection ?
4. The potential cifs clients are belong to a NT domain. If I use domain-level security, do I need to create the same user id ( group id) on CIFS server ?
Your advice on any above questions, or issues that I can't cover here, are welcome.

Thanks,
Victor

[rainer doelker · Accepted solution]

Hello Victor,

to your questions:
1) yes you should start off by /opt/samba/bin/samba_setup
to get the basic smb.conf file, this is interactive an e.g. asks you which security-level you will run.

2) Yes that is true, but keep in mind that at least W95 does not use encrypted passwords and WinNT and W2K will do as long as you do not change it in the registry. You'll find additional information in encryption.txt and winnt.txt in the documentation directory.

3) this leads to the security models. levels user/share use smbpasswd (or /etc/passwd) for validation. levels server/domain will use an Windows server. (server will cause an rcp-request; domain will make the server part of the domain communicating via the secure channel)
security levels domain and server will use the windows userdatabase and map the user to a unix-user which must exist (either with via mapfile or as real user in /etc/passwd) (that was 4))

Additional you may want to view other sources for reading:
Here's the current CIFS-Weblist:
CIFS Support is not included in the HP-UX support;
Support Contracts:
CIFS Client: http://www.software.hp.com/cgi-bin/swdepot_parser.cgi/cgi/displayProductInfo.pl?productNumber=B8724AA
CIFS Server: http://www.software.hp.com/cgi-bin/swdepot_parser.cgi/cgi/displayProductInfo.pl?productNumber=B8725AA

Documentation:
http://us1.samba.org/samba/oreilly/using_samba/ (Oreilly Book)
/opt/samba/swat/using_samba (Oreilly book)
/opt/samba/HP_docs (PDF's)
http://www.hp.com/products1/unix/operating/hpuxcifs9000/infolibrary/documentation/


Download of current/new versions:
http://www.software.hp.com/cgi-bin/swdepot_parser.cgi/cgi/displayProductInfo.pl?productNumber=B8725AA
or http://www.software.hp.com/ click on "network & system administration"

I would exprect that there are some RCEN's in the knowledge database if you search for "cifs". I fear my access permissions do not match. A good one is XRDKBRC00006503

Hope this helps.
Rainer

[Victor Bao]

Rainer,

Thanks. Your prompting message is a very good starting point of mine.
Really appreciate,

Victor