Red Hat Knowledgebase

Samba can be configured three ways.

1. Directly edit the configuration file /etc/samba/smb.conf
   
   Extensive comments are contained in this file to help explain how to configure the Samba service.
   
   After any changes are made to the smb.conf file you will need to re-read it to have the changes take effect by issuing the command:

   service smb reload
   

   Further information can be found in man smb.conf .
   
   
2. Use the Red Hat Samba configuration tool

   redhat-config-samba
   

   To ensure you have this tool installed

   rpm -q redhat-config-samba
   

   If it is not installed and you have a Red Hat Network (RHN) subscription then the following command will install the tool

   up2date redhat-config-samba
   

   
   
3. Use the Samba Web Administration Tool (SWAT)
   
   To ensure SWAT is installed

   rpm -q samba-swat
   

   If you do not have it installed we have other articles that can explain this process.
   
   Open a web browser and enter localhost:901
   
   If you configure your Samba server with SWAT it will overwrite the /etc/samba/smb.conf file and strip out all the comments. This will make it difficult to directly edit the smb.conf in the future.
   
   It is also important to note that SWAT runs with root level privileges. Because the username and password information to a browser travels across the network in clear text, don't access SWAT from another computer on the network unless your confident in the security of that network.
   
   

Further documentation for Samba on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 can be found in the System Administration Guide

Comprehensive documentation can be found on www.samba.org.