Samba overview

Samba (Session Message Block Server) is a suite of Unix applications that speak the SMB (Server Message Block) protocol. Many operating systems, including Windows and OS/2, use SMB to perform client-server networking. The SAMBA File and Print Server Management solution enables Linux and Windows to coexist successfully on the same network. With Samba, Linux servers act like any other Windows server, offering their resources to SMB/CIFS clients so Linux servers appear just like a Windows server.

What Samba Does?

Samba consists of two key programs, which job is to implement these basic services:

File & print services (for clients supporting one of SMB implementations) on open source systems (Digital Unix, OpenVMS, IRIX, AIX, HPUX, NetBSD, Solaris, FreeBSD, Linux, etv);
Support (partial) for the domain structure of NT DOMAIN; 1) NT DOMAIN primary controller functions (with some restrictions); 2) NT DOMAIN member server (with some restrictions);
WINS services (client and server), TIME-server services etc.

Samba allows client machines to send documents to printers connected to the Samba server. A printer attached to the Samba server shows up in the list of shares offered in the Network Neighborhood. To achieve all mentioned above, you will need to configure Samba PDC.

Prerequisites:

Samba 2.2.x (http://www.samba.org). Any version of Samba will work, but we advise that you use the latest version, with fixes to the previous versionsРІР‚в„ў bugs.

Samba PDC features(version 2.2.0 or higher):

The ability to act as a limited Primary Domain controller for Windows NT and W2000 clients.
User-level security for Windows 9x/ME clients.
Domain account can be viewed using the User Manager for Domains.
Roaming profiles.
Windows NT4-type system policies.

The scenario for making Samba act as a PDC is the following: