| 1 | This is the release version of Samba, the free SMB and CIFS client and
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| 2 | server for UNIX and other operating systems. Samba is maintained by
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| 3 | the Samba Team, who support the original author, Andrew Tridgell.
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| 4 |
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| 5 | >>>> Please read THE WHOLE of this file as it gives important information
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| 6 | >>>> about the configuration and use of Samba.
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| 7 |
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| 8 | NOTE: Installation instructions may be found in
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| 9 | docs/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/install.html
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| 10 |
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| 11 | This software is freely distributable under the GNU public license, a
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| 12 | copy of which you should have received with this software (in a file
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| 13 | called COPYING).
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| 14 |
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| 15 |
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| 16 | WHAT IS SMB/CIFS?
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| 17 | =================
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| 18 |
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| 19 | This is a big question.
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| 20 |
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| 21 | The very short answer is that it is the protocol by which a lot of
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| 22 | PC-related machines share files and printers and other information
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| 23 | such as lists of available files and printers. Operating systems that
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| 24 | support this natively include Windows 9x, Windows NT (and derivatives),
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| 25 | OS/2, Mac OS X and Linux. Add on packages that achieve the same
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| 26 | thing are available for DOS, Windows 3.1, VMS, Unix of all kinds,
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| 27 | MVS, and more. Some Web Browsers can speak this protocol as well
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| 28 | (smb://). Alternatives to SMB include Netware, NFS, Appletalk,
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| 29 | Banyan Vines, Decnet etc; many of these have advantages but none are
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| 30 | both public specifications and widely implemented in desktop machines
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| 31 | by default.
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| 32 |
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| 33 | The Common Internet File system (CIFS) is what the new SMB initiative
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| 34 | is called. For details watch http://samba.org/cifs.
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| 35 |
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| 36 |
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| 37 | WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO USE SMB?
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| 38 | ==============================
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| 39 |
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| 40 | 1. Many people want to integrate their Microsoft desktop clients
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| 41 | with their Unix servers.
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| 42 |
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| 43 | 2. Others want to integrate their Microsoft (etc) servers with Unix
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| 44 | servers. This is a different problem to integrating desktop
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| 45 | clients.
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| 46 |
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| 47 | 3. Others want to replace protocols like NFS, DecNet and Novell NCP,
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| 48 | especially when used with PCs.
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| 49 |
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| 50 |
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| 51 | WHAT CAN SAMBA DO?
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| 52 | ==================
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| 53 |
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| 54 | Please refer to the WHATSNEW.txt included with this README for
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| 55 | a list of features in the latest Samba release.
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| 56 |
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| 57 | Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does.
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| 58 | For many networks this can be simply summarized by "Samba provides
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| 59 | a complete replacement for Windows NT, Warp, NFS or Netware servers."
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| 60 |
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| 61 | - a SMB server, to provide Windows NT and LAN Manager-style file and print
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| 62 | services to SMB clients such as Windows 95, Warp Server, smbfs and others.
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| 63 |
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| 64 | - a Windows NT 4.0 Domain Controller replacement.
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| 65 |
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| 66 | - a file/print server that can act as a member of a Windows NT 4.0
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| 67 | or Active Directory domain.
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| 68 |
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| 69 | - a NetBIOS (rfc1001/1002) nameserver, which amongst other things gives
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| 70 | browsing support. Samba can be the master browser on your LAN if you wish.
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| 71 |
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| 72 | - a ftp-like SMB client so you can access PC resources (disks and
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| 73 | printers) from UNIX, Netware, and other operating systems
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| 74 |
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| 75 | - a tar extension to the client for backing up PCs
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| 76 |
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| 77 | - limited command-line tool that supports some of the NT administrative
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| 78 | functionality, which can be used on Samba, NT workstation and NT server.
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| 79 |
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| 80 | For a much better overview have a look at the web site at
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| 81 | http://samba.org/samba, and browse the user survey.
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| 82 |
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| 83 | Related packages include:
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| 84 |
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| 85 | - smbfs, a Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount remote SMB
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| 86 | filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included as standard with
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| 87 | Linux 2.0 and later.
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| 88 |
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| 89 | - cifsvfs, a more advanced Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount
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| 90 | remote SMB filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included
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| 91 | as standard with Linux 2.5 and later.
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| 92 |
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| 93 |
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| 94 |
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| 95 | CONTRIBUTIONS
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| 96 | =============
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| 97 |
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| 98 | If you want to contribute to the development of the software then
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| 99 | please join the mailing list. The Samba team accepts patches
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| 100 | (preferably in "diff -u" format, see http://samba.org/samba/devel/
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| 101 | for more details) and are always glad to receive feedback or
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| 102 | suggestions to the address samba@lists.samba.org. More information
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| 103 | on the various Samba mailing lists can be found at http://lists.samba.org/.
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| 104 |
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| 105 | You can also get the Samba sourcecode straight from the Subversion tree - see
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| 106 | http://samba.org/samba/subversion.html.
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| 107 |
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| 108 | You could also send hardware/software/money/jewelry or pre-paid pizza
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| 109 | vouchers directly to Andrew. The pizza vouchers would be especially
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| 110 | welcome, in fact there is a special field in the survey for people who
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| 111 | have paid up their pizza :-)
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| 112 |
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| 113 | If you like a particular feature then look through the Subversion change-log
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| 114 | (on the web at http://websvn.samba.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi) and see
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| 115 | who added it, then send them an email.
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| 116 |
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| 117 | Remember that free software of this kind lives or dies by the response
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| 118 | we get. If no one tells us they like it then we'll probably move onto
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| 119 | something else. However, as you can see from the user survey quite a lot of
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| 120 | people do seem to like it at the moment :-)
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| 121 |
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| 122 |
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| 123 | MORE INFO
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| 124 | =========
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| 125 |
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| 126 | DOCUMENTATION
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| 127 | -------------
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| 128 |
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| 129 | There is quite a bit of documentation included with the package,
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| 130 | including man pages, and lots of .html files with hints and useful
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| 131 | info. This is also available from the web page. There is a growing
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| 132 | collection of information under docs/.
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| 133 |
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| 134 | A list of Samba documentation in languages other than English is
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| 135 | available on the web page.
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| 136 |
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| 137 | If you would like to help with the documentation, please coodinate
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| 138 | on the samba@samba.org mailing list. See the next section for details
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| 139 | on subscribing to samba mailing lists.
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| 140 |
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| 141 |
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| 142 | MAILING LIST
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| 143 | ------------
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| 144 |
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| 145 | Please do NOT send subscription/unsubscription requests to the lists!
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| 146 |
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| 147 | There is a mailing list for discussion of Samba. For details go to
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| 148 | <http://lists.samba.org/> or send mail to <samba-subscribe@lists.samba.org>
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| 149 |
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| 150 | There is also an announcement mailing list where new versions are
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| 151 | announced. To subscribe go to <http://lists.samba.org/> or send mail
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| 152 | to <samba-announce-subscribe@lists.samba.org>. All announcements also
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| 153 | go to the samba list, so you only need to be on one.
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| 154 |
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| 155 | For details of other Samba mailing lists and for access to archives, see
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| 156 | <http://lists.samba.org/>
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| 157 |
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| 158 |
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| 159 | MAILING LIST ETIQUETTE
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| 160 | ----------------------
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| 161 |
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| 162 | A few tips when submitting to this or any mailing list.
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| 163 |
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| 164 | 1. Make your subject short and descriptive. Avoid the words "help" or
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| 165 | "Samba" in the subject. The readers of this list already know that
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| 166 | a) you need help, and b) you are writing about samba (of course,
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| 167 | you may need to distinguish between Samba PDC and other file
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| 168 | sharing software). Avoid phrases such as "what is" and "how do
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| 169 | i". Some good subject lines might look like "Slow response with
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| 170 | Excel files" or "Migrating from Samba PDC to NT PDC".
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| 171 |
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| 172 | 2. If you include the original message in your reply, trim it so that
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| 173 | only the relevant lines, enough to establish context, are
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| 174 | included. Chances are (since this is a mailing list) we've already
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| 175 | read the original message.
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| 176 |
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| 177 | 3. Trim irrelevant headers from the original message in your
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| 178 | reply. All we need to see is a) From, b) Date, and c) Subject. We
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| 179 | don't even really need the Subject, if you haven't changed
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| 180 | it. Better yet is to just preface the original message with "On
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| 181 | [date] [someone] wrote:".
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| 182 |
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| 183 | 4. Please don't reply to or argue about spam, spam filters or viruses
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| 184 | on any Samba lists. We do have a spam filtering system that is
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| 185 | working quite well thank you very much but occasionally unwanted
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| 186 | messages slip through. Deal with it.
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| 187 |
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| 188 | 5. Never say "Me too." It doesn't help anyone solve the
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| 189 | problem. Instead, if you ARE having the same problem, give more
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| 190 | information. Have you seen something that the other writer hasn't
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| 191 | mentioned, which may be helpful?
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| 192 |
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| 193 | 6. If you ask about a problem, then come up with the solution on your
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| 194 | own or through another source, by all means post it. Someone else
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| 195 | may have the same problem and is waiting for an answer, but never
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| 196 | hears of it.
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| 197 |
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| 198 | 7. Give as much *relevant* information as possible such as Samba
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| 199 | release number, OS, kernel version, etc...
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| 200 |
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| 201 | 8. RTFM. Google. groups.google.com.
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| 202 |
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| 203 |
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| 204 | NEWS GROUP
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| 205 | ----------
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| 206 |
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| 207 | You might also like to look at the usenet news group comp.protocols.smb
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| 208 | as it often contains lots of useful info and is frequented by lots of
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| 209 | Samba users. The newsgroup was initially setup by people on the Samba
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| 210 | mailing list. It is not, however, exclusive to Samba, it is a forum for
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| 211 | discussing the SMB protocol (which Samba implements). The samba list
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| 212 | is gatewayed to this newsgroup.
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| 213 |
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| 214 |
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| 215 | WEB SITE
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| 216 | --------
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| 217 |
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| 218 | A Samba WWW site has been setup with lots of useful info. Connect to:
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| 219 |
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| 220 | http://samba.org/samba/
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| 221 |
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| 222 | As well as general information and documentation, this also has searchable
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| 223 | archives of the mailing list and a user survey that shows who else is using
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| 224 | this package. Have you registered with the survey yet? :-)
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| 225 |
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