Sams Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours		ContentsIndex
Hour 4: Installing and Testing the Configuration		Previous HourNext Hour
Sections in this Chapter: Which Processes? Command-Line Arguments Configuring the [global] Section of smb.conf Testing the Installation Setting up the Shared Group Directory Other Tools Included with Samba Setting Up a User's Home Directories Summary Setting Up the Printer Q&A Verifying smb.conf New Terms Starting smbd and nmbd		Previous SectionNext Section

Verifying smb.conf

I assume that the binaries you have are compiled correctly using the default locations. The next step is to verify that there are no syntax errors in smb.conf. If you installed all the Samba utilities (which is what happens when you type make install), you should find a tool named testparm in the /usr/local//samba/bin/ directory. The utility checks smb.conf and prints out all the default values which were not overridden. It can be very helpful to make sure Samba is seeing what you think it should see.

I purposely misspelled netbios in the [global] section of the following smb.conf file.

; smb.conf's global parameters section
[global]
        ; set the netbios machine name for the server
        netbis name = EAGLE
        ; set the workgroup membership
        workgroup =  FOWLPLAY
        ; set Samba to authenticate in user mode security
        security = user
        printing = bsd

I then ran it through the testparm tool. If you want testparm to examine an smb.conf file located somewhere other than the compile default, you can use the -s filename switch:

root# /usr/local/samba/bin/testparm -s smb.conf | head -6
Load smb config files from smb.conf
Unknown parameter encountered: "netbis name"
Ignoring unknown parameter "netbis name"
Processing section "[boss1]"
Processing section "[homes]"
Processing section "[printer1]"

You'll notice that the output reports an unknown parameter: netbis name.

Another useful means of using testparm is to determine the default values of parameters. For example, the following output indicates that the default guest account is nobody.

root# /usr/local/samba/bin/testparm -s smb.conf | grep "guest account"
        guest account = nobody

Sams Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours		ContentsIndex
Hour 4: Installing and Testing the Configuration		Previous HourNext Hour
Sections in this Chapter: Which Processes? Command-Line Arguments Configuring the [global] Section of smb.conf Testing the Installation Setting up the Shared Group Directory Other Tools Included with Samba Setting Up a User's Home Directories Summary Setting Up the Printer Q&A Verifying smb.conf New Terms Starting smbd and nmbd		Previous SectionNext Section

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