Dancing The Samba (part 2) - Keeping It Simple (
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If you're the kind of person who finds it hard to deal with text files, Samba comes with a graphical, browser-based interface that helps you configure the software without resorting to manually editing configuration files. This tool, affectionately known as SWAT (Samba Web Administration Tool), provides an easy-to-use graphical interface to the numerous configuration directives available in the "smb.conf" file.
Although the "swat" binary is installed as part of the standard Samba installation process, and is typically located at /usr/local/samba/bin/swat, you need to jump through a couple more hoops in order to get it running. Since SWAT usually runs on port 901, the first hoop involves editing the "inetd" daemon's configuration files to let it know about this port. Pop open your "inetd" services file (usually /etc/services) and add the following line to it:
swat 901/tcp
Next, tell "inetd" a little bit more about the service that will be running on that port, in /etc/inetd.conf:
swat stream tcp nowait.400 root /usr/local/samba/bin/swat swat
Restart the "inetd" server and try browsing to the URL
http://olympus:901/
where "olympus" is the name of the server Samba has been installed on.
After entering the administrator user name and password, you should be rewarded with the SWAT opening screen, which looks like this:
You can now use the point-and-click interface to set up, edit and remove shares; define privilege levels and permissions; control name mangling and perform other common tasks. SWAT also includes context-sensitive help for each configuration option available in Samba, so that you have an easy way to refer to the meanings of the various directives. It's quick, reliable and relatively pain-free...and infinitely simpler than using Vi!
SWAT isn't the only GUI to Samba, however - you should also take a look at Komba, a KDE variant and SambaLink/Q, a QT-based alternative (
http://www.spanware.com/linkq/sambalinkq.html)
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