SWATing Samba

By:socrates

Installing SAMBA on the IRIX platform is rather easy. The good people at SGI have come
out with a freeware CDs. The CD contains lots of nice and nifty software that most
people would like to have and use. It caters to just about any and everybody and the
best part of it is it's free. ( nuff' pluggin )These CDs contains the installers for
the IRIX platform and jive very well through the IRIX Software manager. Just bang in
the CD; ( for all you pple without CD-ROMs wtf you mean you don't have a CD-ROM.)
double-click the CD-ROM drive icon from IRIS desktop interface.

The software manager kicks in and tries to install EVERYTHING on the CD, 3/4 of which
you don't want.Plus a majority of these freeware are duplicates of each other.Maybe you
want maybe you don't.So you'll have to go through Customize Installations ( that's the
middle selection button on the Software manager window.). There is a set of menus at
the top which will allow you to unmark all the files for installation. This will save
you sometime clicking on every single button and accidentally skipping the SAMBA
installation.

Start the install and away it goes. Okay okay so I ain't so great at the IRIX command
prompt. I just never found the time to practice, so sue me. Okay now you want more
information ? check out http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/. ( This is their main website
and they have a lot more mirrors. So you might want to check out www.samba.org and find
a site closer to you. ) You will be able to find further information on installation
and troubleshooting. Be warned, most of the commands might not be OS specific. So some
commands you see being offered might work on your friends version of nix but not on
yours.

Once the installation is completed you'll have to set the daemon processes to start on
start up of the machine. Generally if you installed on IRIX via the Software Manager,
this is taken care off for you. ( Hooray for user-friendly installation ) SAMBA runs
off 2 daemon processes; nmbd and smbd. On the IRIX command prompt, chkconfig will let
you know what daemon or machine settings have been set to start on startup. So typing
"chkconfig/nmbd on" sets nmbd to start up on power up. also type in the following so
the smbd process starts during the power up : "chkconfig/smbd on". (* note you may have
to type /etc at the front of the commands if your paths are not set*). Make sure you're
a super-user.

Now you will want to start the two deamon processes. Firstly check to see if the
processes are running. Just incase you have 2 different copies of the daemons running
at the same time. Listing all the processes and look for "mbd" in the syntax, will show
if the processes are running. The command for this under IRIX is "ps -ef | grep mbd".
if nothing turns up, the processes aren't running. If the processes are not running,
you'll have to start it up. There are 3 different ways you may do this. There's the
luser-way the really Elite way and the easy-peasy (aka elite & smart)way.
The luser way is to restart the machine ( heck with those logged RESTART, nuff said).
Of course this only works if you set the processes to start on startup. And If you
didn't; READ THE LAST PARAGRAPGH !
The really Elite manner would be to start up the processes using the command prompt.
There are basically 2 methods, you could do it by running the commands or, using the
super daemon process to start it up.
The basic start up would be to type both of the following.

/usr/samba/bin/smbd -D
/usr/samba/bin/nmbd D

Simple ? Well the init.d is almost as simple on IRIX.To start SAMBA via the superdaemon; this type this at the SU prompt.

/etc/init.d/smbd; start...... that should start the smbd daemon.

Next you do the same for nmbd by typing
/etc/init.d/nmbd start.

This might not neccesarrily start the service. So you double check to see if the
processe are running. If it is you're on your way ! Otherwise you'll have to go through
the commands again. This time GET IT RIGHT.
Your next step is to configure the shares. Right about now you people must be thinking
"doof you configure before you start the program!". Hold on, SAMBA actually checks the
configuration/share files for changes every 10 minutes. I could be wrong so don't take
my word for it.

Remember I told you there's an easier way to start up the daemon processes for SAMBA ?
Well you can do all the configuring there TOO ! The simplest way to start and configure
SAMBA is by using the web browser. WHAT ?? you may be thinking; Well then just point
your web browser to localhost:901. This will start-up the Samba Web Administration
Tool. aka SWAT (pretty cool name) program. As the name tells you ... its a web-browser
based SAMBA admin controller. Giving you full control of samba file shares and its
status. SWAT from the web browser will then try to log you in. Here you will need to
login as a valid Samba Controller. If this is your first time then the root

Figure 1 : SWAT Login Screen

You must have a password for the root user. In my experience IRIX 6.5.10 onwards does
not accept any remote logins with user san password. Same with FTP logins or any such
like logins. So if you try to login and there isn't a password, you don't get access
people.

Click on the Status button and you come to page that will allow you to start/stop or
restart both the daemon processes. If you don't know how to start-up the daemon
processes at this point, you're beyond help.

Figure 2 :The SWAT basic interface. Note the buttons and icons.

Configuring is Just as simple with SWAT. Just select the Shares Menu Icon (fig 3a,3b).
Where you see the empty space, just type the name of the shared directory, and whack
the create share button. This should push you to a different screen (fig 3b), where you
can put in further information (like the path? ) about the shared directory. If
everything is a-ok then smack on the commit changes button and your on your way. Now
all of this data on what is the shared directory name and all the other information is
stored in a little file called "smb.conf". Prior to SAMBA version 1.8, ( I think ) you
would find the file in the /usr/local/samba/lib directory. Otherwise you'll find it in
the /usr/samba/lib directory.

This file also contains lots of other information. If you are integrating your IRIX
with a Win98 or WinNT 4 SP3 and higher; turn on the encrypted password option. If you
can't see this option in the basic view of the Global variables ( like in fig 2 ), you
will have to enable the advance option. The hacker way would be to put in the "encrypted
passwords = yes" line some where in the smb.conf file.

Now the thing with SAMBA is that you have to make sure that the NT/2000 machine has a
similar user with that of the IRIX system. This is because of the SMB level controls
and permissions/login stuff. I'm not really knowledgebale but all I know is that both
machines have to know the same people. Passwords need not be similar on both machines.
Now if your SAMBA machine and windows NT box is running, then you should be ready to
get some connectivity going.

Firstly I assume that both machines are on the same windows workgroup and the TCP/IP
addresses and mask are correctly setup so that both machines are able to see each
other. If it is, then you should be able to see the SAMBA mounts and shares appear on
the Network Neighbour. Login using the uid that is available both sides. If you have
set your encrypted password option to on, there should be no problems with connectiong
to the IRIX machines.

If you think this is horrible written ? too bad... I don't care. But here's a link with
a book (online) that I found. It's rather useful, and I've sen it in the book stores in
Malaysia. I haven't made a comparison between the on-line version and the
(anti-enviromental) paperback version; but I think they are got the full book version.
Well as far as I can tell.

Ohhh the link www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/ Now everybody say, "Thank you O'Reilly
!!".
WHERE TO GET SAMBA point your browser to http://www.samba.org/ to locate your closest
ftp site to download Samba.

1.) Remote Host Discovery with Portscanning - adept
2.) Script Kiddies and Screenwhores - Grifter
3.) Intro to Packet Sniffers - Grifter
4.) Quantum Mechanics (Part 2) - Josette
5.) SWATing Samba - socrates
6.) The Quest for Passwords - Shaft
7.) Windows or Linux? - Sebastian
8.) Getting Started with MySQL - L33tdawg