-This is version 1.9 of Samba, the free SMB client and server for unix.
+This is the release version of Samba, the free SMB and CIFS client and
+server for UNIX and other operating systems. Samba is maintained by
+the Samba Team, who support the original author, Andrew Tridgell.
>>>> Please read THE WHOLE of this file as it gives important information
>>>> about the configuration and use of Samba.
+NOTE: Installation instructions may be found in
+ docs/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/install.html
+
This software is freely distributable under the GNU public license, a
copy of which you should have received with this software (in a file
called COPYING).
+
+WHAT IS SMB/CIFS?
+=================
+
+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 information
+such as lists of available files and printers. Operating systems that
+support this natively include Windows 9x, Windows NT (and derivatives),
+OS/2, Mac OS X and Linux. Add on packages that achieve the same
+thing are available for DOS, Windows 3.1, VMS, Unix of all kinds,
+MVS, and more. Some Web Browsers can speak this protocol as well
+(smb://). 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 File system (CIFS) is what the new SMB initiative
+is called. For details watch http://samba.org/cifs.
+
+
+WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO USE SMB?
+==============================
+
+1. Many people want to integrate their Microsoft desktop clients
+ with their Unix servers.
+
+2. Others want to integrate their Microsoft (etc) servers with Unix
+ servers. This is a different problem to integrating desktop
+ clients.
+
+3. Others want to replace protocols like NFS, DecNet and Novell NCP,
+ especially when used with PCs.
+
+
WHAT CAN SAMBA DO?
==================
-Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does
+Please refer to the WHATSNEW.txt included with this README for
+a list of features in the latest Samba release.
+
+Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does.
+For many networks this can be simply summarized by "Samba provides
+a complete replacement for Windows NT, Warp, NFS or Netware servers."
+
+- 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 Windows NT 4.0 Domain Controller replacement.
-- a SMB server, to provide LanManager style file and print services to PCs
+- a file/print server that can act as a member of a Windows NT 4.0
+ or Active Directory domain.
-- a Netbios (rfc1001/1002) nameserver
+- a NetBIOS (rfc1001/1002) nameserver, which amongst 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
+- limited command-line tool that supports some of the NT administrative
+ functionality, which can be used on Samba, NT workstation and NT server.
+
+For a much better overview have a look at the web site at
+http://samba.org/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.
+
+- cifsvfs, a more advanced Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount
+remote SMB filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included
+as standard with Linux 2.5 and later.
-- tcpdump-smb, a extension to tcpdump to allow you to investigate SMB
-networking problems over netbeui and tcp/ip
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 http://samba.org/samba/devel/
+for more details) and are always glad to receive feedback or
+suggestions to the address samba@lists.samba.org. More information
+on the various Samba mailing lists can be found at http://lists.samba.org/.
-You could also send hardware/software/money/jewelry or pizza
-vouchers directly to me. The pizza vouchers would be especially
-welcome :-)
+You can also get the Samba sourcecode straight from the Subversion tree - see
+http://samba.org/samba/subversion.html.
-If you like a particular feature then look through the change-log and
-see who added it, then send them an email.
+You could also send hardware/software/money/jewelry or pre-paid pizza
+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 :-)
-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.
+If you like a particular feature then look through the Subversion change-log
+(on the web at http://websvn.samba.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi) and see
+who added it, then send them an email.
-Andrew Tridgell
-Email: samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au
-
-3 Ballow Crescent
-Macgregor, A.C.T.
-2615 Australia
+Remember that free software of this kind lives or dies by the response
+we get. If no one tells us they like it then we'll probably move onto
+something else. However, as you can see from the user survey quite a lot of
+people do seem to like it at the moment :-)
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.
+including man pages, and lots of .html files with hints and useful
+info. This is also available from the web page. There is a growing
+collection of information under docs/.
-FTP SITE
---------
+A list of Samba documentation in languages other than English is
+available on the web page.
+
+If you would like to help with the documentation (and we _need_ help!)
+then have a look at the mailing list samba-docs, archived at
+http://lists.samba.org/listinfo/samba-docs/
-The main anonymous ftp distribution site for this software is
-nimbus.anu.edu.au in the directory pub/tridge/samba/.
MAILING LIST
------------
-There is a mailing list for discussion of Samba. To subscribe send
-mail to listproc@samba.anu.edu.au with a body of "subscribe samba Your Name"
+Please do NOT send subscription/unsubscription requests to the lists!
+
+There is a mailing list for discussion of Samba. For details go to
+<http://lists.samba.org/> or send mail to <samba-subscribe@lists.samba.org>
+
+There is also an announcement mailing list where new versions are
+announced. To subscribe go to <http://lists.samba.org/> or send mail
+to <samba-announce-subscribe@lists.samba.org>. All announcements also
+go to the samba list, so you only need to be on one.
+
+For details of other Samba mailing lists and for access to archives, see
+<http://lists.samba.org/>
+
+
+MAILING LIST ETIQUETTE
+----------------------
-To send mail to everyone on the list mail to samba@listproc.anu.edu.au
+A few tips when submitting to this or any mailing list.
-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.
+1. Make your subject short and descriptive. Avoid the words "help" or
+ "Samba" in the subject. The readers of this list already know that
+ a) you need help, and b) you are writing about samba (of course,
+ you may need to distinguish between Samba PDC and other file
+ sharing software). Avoid phrases such as "what is" and "how do
+ i". Some good subject lines might look like "Slow response with
+ Excel files" or "Migrating from Samba PDC to NT PDC".
+
+2. If you include the original message in your reply, trim it so that
+ only the relevant lines, enough to establish context, are
+ included. Chances are (since this is a mailing list) we've already
+ read the original message.
+
+3. Trim irrelevant headers from the original message in your
+ reply. All we need to see is a) From, b) Date, and c) Subject. We
+ don't even really need the Subject, if you haven't changed
+ it. Better yet is to just preface the original message with "On
+ [date] [someone] wrote:".
+
+4. Please don't reply to or argue about spam, spam filters or viruses
+ on any Samba lists. We do have a spam filtering system that is
+ working quite well thank you very much but occasionally unwanted
+ messages slip through. Deal with it.
+
+5. Never say "Me too." It doesn't help anyone solve the
+ problem. Instead, if you ARE having the same problem, give more
+ information. Have you seen something that the other writer hasn't
+ mentioned, which may be helpful?
+
+6. If you ask about a problem, then come up with the solution on your
+ own or through another source, by all means post it. Someone else
+ may have the same problem and is waiting for an answer, but never
+ hears of it.
+
+7. Give as much *relevant* information as possible such as Samba
+ release number, OS, kernel version, etc...
+
+8. RTFM. Google. groups.google.com.
NEWS GROUP
----------
-You might also like to look at the usenet news group
-comp.protocols.smb as it often contains lots of useful info and is
-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).
+You might also like to look at the usenet news group comp.protocols.smb
+as it often contains lots of useful info and is 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). The samba list
+is gatewayed to this newsgroup.
WEB SITE
A Samba WWW site has been setup with lots of useful info. Connect to:
-http://lake.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/
-
-It is maintained by Paul Blackman (thanks Paul!). You can contact him
-at ictinus@lake.canberra.edu.au.
-
+http://samba.org/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? :-)
git.samba.org / ira / wip.git / blobdiff