Overview

Secrets in This Chapter

• Exporting a File System with NFS

• Configuring Samba

• Accessing the Samba Server from Windows

A low-end Pentium PC configured with Red Hat Linux (from this book's companion CD-ROMs) makes a very capable workgroup (or office) server. By workgroup, I mean a small local area network (LAN) of perhaps a dozen or so PCs. You can configure the Linux PC to be the file and print server and have the other PCs be the clients. The client PCs do not have to run Linux; they can run Windows. Linux comes with the Samba package, which provides you with everything you need to set up your Linux PC as a server in a Windows network. This chapter introduces you to Samba-a software package that makes a Linux server look like a Windows server with shared drives (Samba can act as a Windows NT Primary Domain Controller, but, as of version 2.2, it does not yet support Active Directory). Also, you learn about file sharing through Network File System (NFS), which is built into Linux.