Discussion on Linux 101: How to set up Linux on a PC

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Editor

Linux 101: A Primer

Mark W. Kaelin 5th Dec 2005

The downloadable version of this article is available here:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5138-10877-5982865.html

What aspect of the Linux operating system would you like to see explored as part of TechRepublic's Linux 101 series?

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Samba and File Access

Palmetto_CharlieSpencer 5th Dec 2005

Apparently I'm the only one who can't make Samba work. I'd like to know how to get a Linux client to access a shared directory located on a Windows 200x server; how to keep the user password on the Linux client in sync with the domain password on Active Directory; and how to set up the Linux client so it passes the user credentials to the AD domain. I'd like the last two tasks to occur without the end user having to take any action, just like they don't have to worry these things when they use a Windows client PC.

I'd also like to know how to set up file access rights in Linux for multiple groups of users. For shared directories on our Server 2003 domain, we allow network admins Full Control (Read / Write / Delete / Access Control); a second group of users Change access (Read / Write / Delete); a third group Read only; and all remaining users are denied access.

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re: Samba

Jaqui 5th Dec 2005

I personally, can't say if it's because everyone can get samba working or not.
no windows servers where I've needed to use samba.
I've never installed or used it.
[ no copy of ad etc to install on a box and see if I can get Samba to work as you mention ]

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samba and AD or just a share?

jmgarvin 5th Dec 2005

That makes a difference. Did you use SWAT or the smb.conf to configure it? Did you try Webmin? What are specific problems you are having? What distro of Linux?

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It's been a while

Palmetto_CharlieSpencer 6th Dec 2005

It's been almost two years since I tried it. At that time it would have been an NT share, since we just converted to AD this past weekend. I don't remember hearing of SWAT or Webmin, so I must have been playing with the smb.conf. The distro was RH9.

Specifically, I'd get prompted for a username / password whenever I attempted to access a shared directory (or the proxy server; I didn't try printers or other domain resources). If my local Linux account is set up with the same credentials as my domain account, can Linux pass the credentials to the domain as needed? And when the Windows domain forces a password change, can the new password be sent back to the local Linux user account, keeping the passwords in sync?

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I'm a little confused

jmgarvin 6th Dec 2005

I think what you are getting at is the need for samba users, but I honestly am confused by your post.

I think for what you are suggesting you will need LDAP/Kerberos.

Am I understand correctly?

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Samba with AD

danmcl 7th Dec 2005

If you go to http://www.thewetbeaversmileswhentickled.com/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2005/08/09#sambainawindowsdomain

this is my bosses blog, he has detailed how to get working exactly what you are looking for, its a howto for debian but most distros should be similar.

Happy to Help.

D

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Thanks

Palmetto_CharlieSpencer 7th Dec 2005

I've bookmarked it. I hope to give it a try after the first of the year. Then I hope to figure out what each command does individually. Maybe someone could expand on this as a Linux 101 topic.

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Join the club.

Palmetto_CharlieSpencer 7th Dec 2005

You think YOU'RE a little confused?

I'm not sure how I can explain it more clearly. I want to be able to access an Windows domain's shared directories from a Linux client. I also don't want to have to enter credentials at the client every time I do this. I'm assuming this will require caching the domain p/w locally, so I also want the locally cached p/w to stay syncronized with the domain p/w, so I don't have to keep up with having to change the p/w in multiple places. Let me know which one of these I haven't sufficiently explained.

Since I've been told at various Linux sites that Samba is what I need to get a Linux box to access shares on a Windows domain, that's what I worked with. Maybe it's not the tool I need to solve the problems listed above. If it's not, what is?

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for full AD functionality

apotheon 7th Dec 2005

What you need is indeed Samba, but not just Samba. You also need Winbind if you want the full Windows Active Directory seamless functionality that you seem to desire.

I actually have yet to need to set up such a network, with Linux clients on a Windows Active Directory managed network, so I'm afraid I don't have a lot of very specific information on the topic. I've worked with Samba a great deal, though, both for integration of Linux systems in a Windows Workgroup and for integration of Windows systems into a Linux network. I might get around to putting together a Samba tutorial/howto at some point: if I do, it'll appear in my TR blog, I'm sure.

By the way, the O'Reilly book Using Samba is available for free download. It's more useful as a reference than a tutorial, because it's not written in a very newbie-friendly fashion, but it might come in handy for you.

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Mounting Windows 2000 vs 2003/XP

mgordon@... 16th Dec 2005

Using Linux as the client and Windows as the server is something I do all the time. It took forever to discover why I was having trouble mounting a Windows 2003 share. Answer: The mount type is SMB for Windows 2000 (and previous releases) but CIFS for attaching to a share on Windows 2003 and XP.

As others have mentioned, some mechanisms exist (that I have never played with) to make Linux play nice-nice in an Active Directory environment, presumably achieving something like a single-sign-on capability. I am more sure that the mechanism exists to allow Linux to be a server and authenticate Windows clients. The other way round I am not so sure about; a Windows domain requires that the machine itself be authenticated and any user on that machine to be authenticated. Seems like a lot of bother to me. The Samba suite includes a password synchronizer but I have not played with it.

Anyway, you can automount the Windows shares into the Linux client at boot time. I have stored passwords in the /mnt directory, root is the only reader of it of course.

It's wonderful to be able to mount more than 26 shares! That's where Windows gets off the boat.

SMB is a horrible protocol, amazingly inefficient -- who needs gigabit switches when the protocol itself imposes a serious transfer speed limit? CIFS seems to be more efficient, achieving throughput of 2.7 megabytes/sec through a Cisco 3524 (100 megabit/sec) switch.

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SMB and CIFS

apotheon 16th Dec 2005

CIFS uses the SMB protocol. CIFS is basically just a Windows implementation of SMB, and in fact Win2k used CIFS (it was created in '98), though like anything else Microsoft does it has been changed several times, breaking backward compatibility in some unnecessary ways, over the years since then.

Sever Message Block is a protocol. CIFS is a specification that uses SMB.

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mgordon and apotheon

Palmetto_CharlieSpencer Updated - 17th Dec 2005

"I am more sure that the mechanism exists to allow Linux to be a server and authenticate Windows clients. The other way round I am not so sure about; a Windows domain requires that the machine itself be authenticated and any user on that machine to be authenticated. Seems like a lot of bother to me."

As a beginner, I think it's going to be easier to create a Linux client and add it to my company's existing AD domain, than attempt to add a Linux server. Also, my eventual, very-long term goal is the possible replacement of selected Windows clients with Linux clients.

"Anyway, you can automount the Windows shares into the Linux client at boot time. I have stored passwords in the /mnt directory, root is the only reader of it of course."

The problem with that is it requires me to go back to the machine and change the cached p/w when our AD domain forces the user to changes p/w periodically.

"It's wonderful to be able to mount more than 26 shares! That's where Windows gets off the boat."

I'll take your word for it. I don't think I have a user who is currently mounting more than 10 or maybe 12.

appy, thanks for the CIFS/SMB clarification.

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Configuring SWAT

ludedude25@... 15th Dec 2005

Keep in mind this is for SuSE 9.3 but the SWAT configuring is the same.

http://www.tweakhound.com/linux/samba/page_1.htm

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I'll bite...

Palmetto_CharlieSpencer 15th Dec 2005

What's SWAT, other than a '70's cop show with a really bad psuedo-disco theme?

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SWAT is:

apotheon 15th Dec 2005

Samba Web Administration Tool

It's a web interface for Samba configuration. Some people like it a lot -- usually those who prefer GUI tools over direct management of system configuration. I never really bothered to learn SWAT, and just learned how to hack the smb.conf file by hand.

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RE:What aspect of the Linux operating system would you like to see explored

DChilds 5th Dec 2005

3 most frequently encountered problems I have had, or come across in forums are:

1. Program Installation/Package Management/Updating
2. Wireless Networking
3. Hardware/driver support

The wireless networking would be my biggest priority, for people to better understand linux-wlan, ndiswrapper, and how different chipset versions of any given card may/may not be supported.

The fourth would be security, and bursting the notion that Linux is by default safe. Some good references to understanding IPTables would help a lot of people understand what the strength of Linux is in this area, and not just rely on hearsay and rhetoric. Look forward to the series.

BTW, please consider mentioning the linux-ntfs project.

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/

It's been an essential kernel driver addition to red hat /fedora.

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okay

Jaqui 6th Dec 2005

making notes on what areas people are wanting more info on.

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about that

apotheon 6th Dec 2005

TR member jmgarvin wrote about wireless networking with ndiswrapper in his TR blog.

Both jmgarvin and I have written about iptables configuration and management in our respective TR blogs -- he discussed setup and configuration in a general technical sense, and I discussed a simple methodology for iptables configuration and management for desktop systems that works well for network administrators as well as home users. His starts back in May, I think, and my treatment of the subject was fairly recent (as of this posting).

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ludedude25@... 15th Dec 2005

I'm not so concerned about wireless networking or Hardware/driver support as I am Program Installation/Package Management/Updating.

The Program Installation/Package Management & /Updating is their biggest weakness in my opinion.

I believe if every distro & kernel had some kind of common package installation it would greatly improve the linux popularity. I don't care what people say Linux is not going to peak untill this is addressed.

Look at the Apple/ Macintosh community, Do you think they would have made it this far if everyone including the average home user had to compile their applications! I seriously doubt it.

There needs to be a step back and add a common, less difficult way of updating & installing programs built into the kernel.

Look at Fedora Core's Yum. It's as simple as typing: yum install wine in terminal.

yum get's the program, find's the dependencies it needs, and installs them.

Problem with yum, yes not every application is there or all the dependencies.

Now if you could sit behind any version of linux, and any user could log in as root, type

package install "name of package"

and linux would log into a server, automatically find the dependencies and install the program wouldn't this be great!

For this to happen there would need to be common server which holds all dependencies for all of the applications. That way no matter where you go, you can download a application, initiate the install and let the linux kernel find and install/associate the dependencies for that application.

I think also if this were to happen the rest would be confronted. More Linux users would equal more device manufactures demands for device drivers that are suited for Linux.

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Antivirus solutions

kare kubik 13th Dec 2005

I know that there are fewer virus threats under Linux than e.g. Windows but they still exist.
They might not be able to bring the whole system down as easily but can still cause trouble..
I would like to see an overview of the options for virus scanners and shields (e-mail/download).
Maybe some statistics on Linux virus activity.

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two things

apotheon 14th Dec 2005

1. Viruses are not only rarer and more limited in terms of what they can do on Linux, but they also find a difficult time spreading and executing, since either operation performed by a virus requires a human at some point to say "Yes, run this." You can't just write something that escapes the notice of a user on a Linux (or other unixy system): you have to actually trick the user into helping.

2. Check out ClamAV. It's designed to protect Windows systems that might be receiving email from a unix system, but it works for doing scans on the unix system in general.

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Two replies

kare kubik 14th Dec 2005

Hi 'apotheon'
Thank you for the prompt reply.

My comments:
1. Yes, it's harder to spread the virus on the actual *nix machine. But I want to set up a Linux file server and want to catch viruses in the files people store on it from whatever OS they use. Forgot to say that in my original post.

2. Thank you for the tip. I'll check it out ASAP -- hoping to get the time before Christmas..

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virus checking

apotheon 14th Dec 2005

"I want to set up a Linux file server and want to catch viruses in the files people store on it from whatever OS they use."
You should definitely look into ClamAV, then. A simple script could be used to automatically scan every file uploaded. There's a ClamAV scanning daemon available (at least on Debian) that might do everything you need with a little configuration, too.

G'luck.

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re clamav..

Jaqui 14th Dec 2005

I just actually checked out Mandriva 2006, they have klamav the kde version of clamav included.
and it updates from the clamav site.

so I would say most full distros have some version of it available then. [ single cd distros not being a "full" distro with the number of packages available. ]

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How to install programs

rhomp2002@... 29th May 2006

I just loaded Mepis and when I went to install something got lost just trying to figure out what it took. If I want to install something that is not on the install list, how do I do this. If I want to install something that is on the install list and it calls for additional resources where do I find them. Where do I find the install list in the first place. What is the difference between -apt (?) and the install click on the list. Where do I go to get a good book that explains what all the command lines are and how to use them. What are the relationships between the command line commands and the click on the mouse commands.

Installing and booting Linux is easy and quick. Doing basic things is easy and quick. Finding what the lingo of Linux means and how to use it is hard because there does not seem to be anything written from the standpoint of if you want to do thus and so, here is where you go and how you do it and the basic methodology can work under these conditions; if you, however, want to do something else, then here is where you go to find that and here is the basic methodology. It is easy if you are PC oriented and a techie. It is not so easy if you are other-oriented and not a PC techie.

As much as I dislike Windoze, I can usually find out how to do something there. With Firefox also I can find out how to do things and what to look out for. With Linux it is all a big mystery unless you are already conditioned for Linux. I am just a little old retired guy with a home computer and I would like to move from Windoze to Linux. Finding how to go about it and expand my possibilities is difficult because there is no there there to read about it all.

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Re Mephis..

Jaqui 29th May 2006

being debian based you can use aptitude or synaptic to see what packages are available.
using either to install a package will tell you what dependancies are also needed, and will install those as well.

for useing a cli tool, there are two options to get the full switch options, the simplest one:

apt-get --help

the slightly harder way [ only because the format isn't very good ]

man apt-get

with every program available for linux there is a man page installed when you install the program, they all have basic usage covered in the internal help switch, which is either -h or --help or both

tldp.org, the linux documentation project has a lot of additional reading resources available, free, including an free version of the command reference guide.

linuxquestions.org, a place that is focused on answering people's questions about linux.

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Dependancys

a1slipkid 13th Dec 2005

My biggest problem with using some distro's is that when you try to download and install a program, it comes up saying that 'this program has the following dependancys which must be installed before the program will opperate' with no information or Heavin forbidd, a link to those files neccessary.

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Checksum MD5

dquinn@... 15th Dec 2005

Although a Linx Newbie, I thought I should add this advice to the above. Most distros recommend that you perform an MD5 checksum on the ISO file after download. (You can download utilities to do this for you) IMHO this is absolutely essential. As I had never had download problems before, I decided to miss this step out and ended up with a stack load of CD table mats!

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Some bad advice here

hopethishelps 7th Jan 2006

Modems: sending a newbie off to compile a linmodem driver is just going to waste a lot of his/her time. The result will be endless frustration, and any idea of migrating to Linux will be abandoned.

Best to say straight out that for most people, it's easier to just buy a supported modem. There are sites like linuxquestions.org that list supported hardware:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php/cat/5
and modems cost only $20 to $30; worth it to save you hours of frustration, if your time is worth more than minimum wage.

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Great...

NaughtyMonkey 11th Oct 2007

I had been trying to dind a realistic partition setup for a normal hard drive. Most out there asssume you have a 10 GB or smaller. I don't thin I need a 500 MB partition for root when I have a 700 GB hard drive.

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Great...

NaughtyMonkey Updated - 11th Oct 2007

I had been trying to find a realistic partition setup for a normal hard drive. Most out there assume you have a 10 GB or smaller. I don't think I need a 500 MB partition for root when I have a 700 GB hard drive.