Re: Connecting from Suse to windows workgroup on

From: David Wright (david_c_wright_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 07/08/05 

Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2005 17:12:02 +0200

qa4ever wrote:

> Hi Linux SUSe gurus!
>
> I got a homelan with a DI-604 router acting DHCP server (what serves a
> pool of IPs) and I have just installed a Suse 9.3 Enterprise Server
> successfully on a lan with two working WinXP machines.
>
> DI-604 is default gateway on 192.168.0.1
> From Suse pinging 127.0.0.1 works but no other machines on the Lan.
> Konqueror do not connect to Internet neither.
>
> Questions:
> 1. How is the inability for Suse to access Internet rectified?
> (there seems to be a number of similar ip / dns / detfault gateway
> settings/
> tools YaST / SaX2 (being more familiar with Windows I find it confusing
> which of the many similar tools to configure the network with?)
> Is it not possible to use Enterprise Server in a homelan?
>
> 2. How do I configure Samba (Client) on Suse so that I can share and
> access other machines on the homelan? And so that I can connect to shares
> on Suse from Windows.
>
> Thank you,
> QA4Ever

First, su'ing to root, or logging in as root (not recommended), using a
terminal window do an "ifconfig" (without the quotes). This should tell you
the IP adress, sub mask etc. that was assigned via DHCP.

You should get something like the following (mine is in German):

eth0 Protokoll:Ethernet Hardware Adresse 00:41:E4:4D:4C:29
          inet Adresse:192.168.0.10 Bcast:192.168.0.255
Maske:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:23595 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:24606 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:1000
          RX bytes:10781459 (10.2 Mb) TX bytes:3529634 (3.3 Mb)
          Interrupt:11 Basisadresse:0x6000

The important ones are the inet Address and Mask. If they are blank or set
to 0, then the machine isn't getting its DHCP information. Either the
router isn't using a standard implementation of DHCP or there may be a
problem with the network card or cabling...

If an address isn't being set, go into YaST and go to Network
Devices->Network Card. This should open a window and in the bottom half of
the window should be your network card and its current configuration. If
there isn't a current network card, the SuSE has not recognised the network
card and you will need to install and configure the card.

If the card isin the configured devices section, click on the change and
check the settings. I would suggest giving the server a fixed address and
manually entering the Gateway and DNS addresses. Once that is done, test
again. Using manually configured addresses may bypass the friendliness of
DHCP, but at least it will prove if the network card and connection are
running correctly. If it connects manually, then there could be a problem
with the DHCP protocol the router is using (some are "windows friendly" and
don't follow the full DHCP standard, meaning Windows machines get the basic
information, but machines expecting the full protocol won't work). If this
is the case, I would suggest switching DHCP on the router off and using
SuSE's DHCP server to serve the other machines, or leave the server hard
configured to a specific address (a better solution, and as the DHCP on
many home routers doesn't allow allocating specific IP addresses to
specific MAC addresses it might be a better solution anyway).

Once you have sorted this out, you can play around with the Samba settings.
You will also probably find that the firewall has SMB messaging blocked by
default. While configuring services on the server I would recommend turning
off the firewall until they are properly configured and working, then turn
the firewall back on and open up the specific ports you need, the number of
people I've seen bashing their heads against the wall because their
smb.conf file or web server isn't working and nobody can see the machine,
only to realise that the firewall is on and not correctly configured!

If you have set the machine up as an Enterprise Server, then I guess using
the client to access the workgroup is a lower priority, and just opening
the network browser should give you a list of Windows machines on the
network ISTR.

There are several methods to configuring the smb.conf file which drives the
Samba server. You can edit it manually, it is the most flexible method and
is good for fine tuning, but is also the least user friendly.

Back in YaST, under Network Services, there is an icon for setting up Samba
client and server. The general information that is needed for you to set up
some shares should be there. Webmin and Swat are two web based tools which
allow you to configure Samba in more detail. (http://www.webmin.com/ and
http://us3.samba.org/samba/ for more information)

There are plenty of excellent tutorials on the web for learning how to
configure Samba, let us know if you get stuck.

One question, why have you installed the Enterprise Server on a small home
network? It is incredibly expensive for a license just to run on a small
home network - and if you haven't purchased a license, then you won't get
any support or security updates. I would recommend SuSE Linux Professional
for home use, it provides most of the features that SLES has, and
everything it sounds like you need, but some of the network services have
cruder interfaces for configuration, but it is cheaper (or free).

Dave

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