[KLUG Members] Re: Qualified Domain Names, et al -- local disk access v. Windows Networking

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Fri, 2002-05-10 at 08:22, Vernon Jenewein wrote:
> Wonderful information from Adam Williams and Brian J Smith regarding the
> Qualified Host Name question(s).  My hats off to you both!! :o)

I'm glad Adam's a little less terse and more "to the point" than me.

> There was a little bit of confusion, on my part, inquiring about what my
> Linux OS 'sees' when it's running.  My hard drive is partitioned to C,
> D, E, F, and G drives.  G is the Windows ME partition, where as the
> others were native from a long time ago.  When my Linux Mandrake is
> running, if I got into Konqueror (super user) or others, and start
> klicking the directory structrues (ie ARROWS) and get to MNT, I see a
> list of my drives C, D, E, F, and G along with other things like the CD
> roms, and Floppy.

Oh, you mean on the same system.  You are dual-booting Linux and Windows
on the system system being discussed, yes?

Mandrake, RedHat and most other Linux distributions automatically detect
Windows partitions on the same system and mount them under /mnt.  That's
NOT using "Windows Networking," just direct disk access.

As you have noticed with Linux, we do not use drive letters in UNIX.  We
"mount" partitions/filesystems into directories.  /mnt is typically used
for removable and foreign filesystems.

> I can litteraly go into each drive and in the case of my "D" drive,
> there I have set up a "Shared Download" folder,

If Linux is running, Windows is NOT so "Windows Networking" is NOT. 
Linux can _see_everything_ on its hard drives, and it understand
Windows' FAT and NTFS filesystems.  That's all it's doing.

> that within it is also a folder called "LINUX" .  I can move files
> from off the internet into that folder while running Windows, and/or
> Linux (though I don't, as they download to /home/frost/<filename>.
> I can also copy files from a floppy or CD or another part of the
> whole system into and out of that  folder (including ANY folder)
> with no problems.

Because Windows and Linux are directly saving to the same areas on the
disk.  Again, this is using 0 networking because both Linux and Windows
are writing directly to the same part of the disk.

> Since our family is networked, my wife and daughters computrs are
> conncted to the switching hub and we can ping and see each other all the
> time (when computer are on).  However,  like I was saying above, I have
> the static address of 192.168.0.1 with subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and
> a gateway of 192.168.0.5 (our internet "router"  web-beetle/modem), and
> my wife is all the same except  192.168.0.2, and Sammy is 192.168.0.3
> all else being the same.   Windows won't recognize the Linux system when
> I have it loaded as the running OS on my machine, but I can see my
> "local" partitioned drives.

Right.  Because "Windows Networking" hasn't been setup in Linux.  It is
not setup by default because there are inherit security issues (which
Microsoft ignores -- in fact Win/DOS is 100% crackable).  But that has
nothing to do with the fact that you can see the drives locally, because
that's just direct disk access as far as Linux is concerned.  It can
access and do anything it wants to your Windows partitions quite
freely.  ;-P

Anyhoo, you need to setup Samba.  Samba is the SMB/CIFS service that
emulates "Windows Networking."  By default, Samba acts like a full
Win/NT server (security=user) with all that security (well, sort of ;-)
and access privaledge levels, details, even domain logins, etc...  If
you want it to act like just another Win/DOS system (security=share),
you can do that too.  Samba has about a thousand options -- because it
can emulate _any_ version of Windows Networking, from old LAN Manager, 
to just short of ActiveDirectory now -- even multiple implementations at
the same time (depending on share, user, etc...).

Samba is a beast that is best served up with a book.  As much as
MacMillian/Sams' "Samba Unleashed" sports 100 pages of my original
thought, I would actually recommend you go with something like their
"Samba in 24 Hours" book.  The former is a bit on the "everything" side,
and the latter is more on the "here's how to get started" side.  Or even
some of the general Linux books have a chapter or two that covers Samba
that might suffice.

A list of books are here:
   http://www.samba.org/samba/books.html

Specific (largely technical) documentation is here:
   http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/

> But, I don't know how to see my wife or daughters computers, from
> Linux, while they are "ON".  All computers run Windows XP with the
> exception of mine, which boots into whatever at the moment. *S*

Setup Samba.  The main config file is /etc[/samba]/smb.conf.

> Intersting thing.... if I look at Pam's "my computer" displayed on
> the desktop of her computer, it now shows the shared folders on my
> computer as "Samaba client.."  never noticed that before.

Depending on the Linux distribution, it will often come setup with a
default Samba client that "looks around" the network for SMB/CIFS
shares.  Some also setup some basic Samba server shares.

> When I set up the Qualified Host Name, is it a good idea to list my
> e-mail address as part of is.. eg. jenefarm ??  jenefarm@i2k.com
> is the complete.

Er, depends if that is what your network uses.  What "domainname" are
you setting up in Windows under TCP/IP networking?

BTW, make sure you are NOT using any protocols _but_ TCP/IP (not IPX nor
NetBEUI) if you want to avoid issues.

> You guys are a great group, and VERY intelligent into the working of
> networking!  and THANK you so much... (printed and archived the e-mail
> threads).

Just understand that you're currently accessing the raw disks and not
using Windows Networking under Linux.

-- Bryan

-- 
The US government could be 100x more effective, and 1/100th the
Constitutional worry, if it dictated its policy to Microsoft as
THE MAJOR CUSTOMER it is, and not THE REGULATOR it fails to be.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, SmithConcepts, Inc.   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
Engineers and IT Professionals     http://www.SmithConcepts.com