-This is version 1.9 of Samba, the free SMB client and server for unix.
+This is version 1.9.16 of Samba, the free SMB client and server for unix
+and other operating systems. Samba is maintained by the Samba Team,
+who support the original author and principal maintainer, Andrew Tridgell.
>>>> Please read THE WHOLE of this file as it gives important information
>>>> about the configuration and use of Samba.
copy of which you should have received with this software (in a file
called COPYING).
+WHAT IS SMB?
+============
+
+This is a big question.
+
+The very short answer is that it is the protocol by which a lot of
+PC-related machines share files and printers and other informatiuon
+such as lists of available files and printers. Operating systems that
+support this natively include Windows NT, OS/2, and Linux and add on
+packages that achieve the same thing are available for DOS, Windows,
+VMS, Unix of all kinds, MVS, and more. There is no reason why Apple
+Macs and indeed any Web browser should not be able to speak this
+protocol, and current development (in which the Samba team is heavily
+involved) is aimed at exactly that. Alternatives to SMB include
+Netware, NFS, Appletalk, Banyan Vines, Decnet etc; many of these have
+advantages but none are both public specifications and widely
+implemented in desktop machines by default.
+
+The Common Internet Filesystem is what the new SMB initiative is
+called. For details watch http://samba.anu.edu.au/cifs.
+
WHAT CAN SAMBA DO?
==================
-Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does
+Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does.
-- a SMB server, to provide LanManager style file and print services to PCs
+- a SMB server, to provide Windows NT and LAN Manager-style file and print
+ services to SMB clients such as Windows 95, Warp Server, smbfs and others.
-- a Netbios (rfc1001/1002) nameserver
+- a Netbios (rfc1001/1002) nameserver, which among other things gives
+ browsing support. Samba can be the master browser on your LAN if you wish.
- a ftp-like SMB client so you can access PC resources (disks and
-printers) from unix
+printers) from unix, Netware and other operating systems
- a tar extension to the client for backing up PCs
+For a much better overview have a look at the web site at
+http://samba.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba, and browse the user survey.
+
Related packages include:
-- ksmbfs, a linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount remote SMB
-filesystems from PCs on your linux box
+- smbfs, a linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount remote SMB
+filesystems from PCs on your linux box. This is included as standard with
+Linux 2.0 and later.
- tcpdump-smb, a extension to tcpdump to allow you to investigate SMB
-networking problems over netbeui and tcp/ip
+networking problems over netbeui and tcp/ip.
+- smblib, a library of smb functions which are designed to make it
+easy to smb-ise any particular application. See
+ftp://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/samba/smblib.
CONTRIBUTIONS
=============
If you want to contribute to the development of the software then
-please join the mailing list. I accept patches (preferably in
-"diff -u" format) and am always glad to receive feedback or suggestions.
+please join the mailing list. The Samba team accepts patches
+(preferably in "diff -u" format, see docs/BUGS.txt for more details)
+and are always glad to receive feedback or suggestions to the address
+samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au.
You could also send hardware/software/money/jewelry or pizza
-vouchers directly to me. The pizza vouchers would be especially
-welcome :-)
+vouchers directly to Andrew. The pizza vouchers would be especially
+welcome, in fact there is a special field in the survey for people who
+have paid up their pizza :-)
If you like a particular feature then look through the change-log and
see who added it, then send them an email.
Remember that free software of this kind lives or dies by the response
we get. If noone tells us they like it then we'll probably move onto
-something else.
+something else. However, as you can see from the user survey quite a lot of
+people do seem to like it at the moment :-)
Andrew Tridgell
Email: samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au
Macgregor, A.C.T.
2615 Australia
+Samba Team
+Email: samba-team@samba.anu.edu.au
MORE INFO
=========
There is quite a bit of documentation included with the package,
including man pages, and lots of .txt files with hints and useful
-info.
+info. This is also available from the web page.
FTP SITE
--------
To send mail to everyone on the list mail to samba@listproc.anu.edu.au
-There is also an announcement mailing list where I announce new
-versions. To subscribe send mail to listproc@samba.anu.edu.au with a body
-of "subscribe samba-announce Your Name". All announcements also go to
-the samba list.
+There is also an announcement mailing list where new versions are
+announced. To subscribe send mail to listproc@samba.anu.edu.au with a
+body of "subscribe samba-announce Your Name". All announcements also
+go to the samba list.
NEWS GROUP
frequented by lots of Samba users. The newsgroup was initially setup
by people on the Samba mailing list. It is not, however, exclusive to
Samba, it is a forum for discussing the SMB protocol (which Samba
-implements).
+implements). The samba list is gatewayed to this newsgroup.
WEB SITE
http://samba.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/
+As well as general information and documentation, this also has searchable
+archives of the mailing list and a user survey that shows who else is using
+this package. Have you registered with the survey yet? :-)
+
It is maintained by Paul Blackman (thanks Paul!). You can contact him
at ictinus@lake.canberra.edu.au.
git.samba.org / samba.git / blobdiff