-This is version 1.9 of Samba, the free SMB client and server for unix.
+This is a development 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/UNIX_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?
+============
+
+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. Apple Macs and some Web Browsers
+can speak this protocol as well. 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 (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 or IBM style desktop
+ machines with their Unix or VMS (etc) servers.
+
+2. Others want to integrate their Microsoft (etc) servers with Unix
+ or VMS (etc) 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
+Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does. For
+many networks this can be simply summarised by "Samba provides a complete
+replacement for Windows NT, Warp, NFS or Netware servers."
-- 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 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.
- 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.org/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@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 CVS tree - see
+http://samba.org/cvs.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 :-)
+
+If you like a particular feature then look through the CVS change-log
+(on the web at http://samba.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/samba) 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.
-
-Andrew Tridgell
-Email: samba-bugs@anu.edu.au
-
-3 Ballow Crescent
-Macgregor, A.C.T.
-2615 Australia
+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.
+info. This is also available from the web page. There is a growing
+collection of information under docs/faq; by the next release expect
+this to be the default starting point.
-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/
-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@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
+----------------------
+
+A few tips when submitting to this or any mailing list.
-To send mail to everyone on the list mail to samba@listproc.anu.edu.au
+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".
-There is also an announcement mailing list where I announce new
-versions. To subscribe send mail to listproc@anu.edu.au with a body
-of "subscribe samba-announce Your Name". All announcements also go to
-the samba list.
+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
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
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 / kai / samba.git / blobdiff