Announcement

**tomcloyd** · Jan 19, 2010, 12:47 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

I'm learning to flinch when I read "easy". Haven't found that path yet. NFS did look promising, but I ran aground on inconsistencies (it seemed) in the instructions. I may have jumped ship prematurely. But Samba seems nearly right, so let's continue.

Here's where I am:

Client machine:

Code:

$ smbtree
Enter tomc's password:
WORKGROUP
    \\TOMC-DESKTOP         tomc-desktop server (Samba, Ubuntu)
        \\TOMC-DESKTOP\tomc       Home Directories
        \\TOMC-DESKTOP\IPC$       IPC Service (tomc-desktop server (Samba, Ubuntu))
        \\TOMC-DESKTOP\print$      Printer Drivers
        \\TOMC-DESKTOP\homes      Home Directories
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$

telengard, you then say:

To list the shares available on the new Samba server:

/etc/samba$ smbclient -L //SERVERNAME

You should see the Homes share listed. Homes is a special share that actually refers
to your home directory on the Samba server computer. In Konqueror, you can access
the home directory with the smb protocol.

First, what's 'SERVERNAME'? I have no idea, and this appears to be your first reference to it. It's not referred to in smb.conf. Here's what I tried, and the result:

Code:

$ smbclient -L //TOMC-DESKTOP
Enter tomc's password:
session setup failed: NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$
$ smbclient -L //WORKGROUP
Enter tomc's password:
Connection to WORKGROUP failed (Error NT_STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_NAME)
tomc@tomc-desktop:~$

I grasping at straws, obviously.

Then you say...

From the client computer, open Konqueror and enter the location shown below
into the location bar, but change the server name and sharename to match the Samba
server's name and the name of the user you configured above with the smbpasswd command.

Code:

smb://SERVERNAME/USERNAME

Well, I know that USERNAME is ("tomc"), but nothing I try for SERVERNAME works.

I use Dolphin, and nothing I try in my client computer works.

"smb://tomc-desktop/tomc" => nothing
"smb://WORKGROUP/tomc" => "timeout on server workgroup"

Suspicious, I reboot my client (netbook). In places, I click network, then samba shares, and see "workgroup" in the directory list. clicking that leads to an empty list. Nothing there at all. Then..."timeout on server workgroup" appears in the status line at the bottom.

I'm aground again, I'm afraid.

**tomcloyd** · Jan 19, 2010, 01:07 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

This is very odd (to me). On my client (netbook - "tomc-laptop"), in Dolphin, I click Places > Network > Network > tomc-desktop, and in the dir list I see

Code:

tomc-desktop [00:11:85:68:26:50]

Looking on my desktop at my Netgear Router Manager Lan setup display, I see that that is the correct Mac address of tomc-desktop. But when I click that single item in the dir list on my client, I get "the file or folder... ... does not exist."

So it's there but it isn't, or something like that. I need a translator, obviously.

**toad** · Jan 19, 2010, 01:24 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Good morning

Can't help you with samba I'm afraid other that - if I were you - I'd adjust samba settings on the server side (your desktop I assume) via GUI.

Code:

kdesu systemsettings

Go to advanced and select Samba.

**tomcloyd** · Jan 19, 2010, 01:34 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

"kdesu"? I've seen that before. It never works.

$ kdesu systemsettings
kdesu: command not found

kdesudo does, though. But...in "systemsettings > advanced" I see no Samba. Sigh.

I think I'm close on this, but just don't know enough. I suspect someone does, though. Thanks for the idea, nevertheless.

**tomcloyd** · Jan 19, 2010, 01:59 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Experiment # 432234: Following the rather muddled instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpSamba (best I've yet seen, but for an older version of Ubuntu, and referencing stuff I cannot make sense of in my 9.10 Kubuntu), I see

If you would like to mount your SMB share using your (server) hostname rather than the IP Address, edit /etc/hosts and add your samba server (syntax IP Address hostname).

192.168.1.100 hostname

Where "hostname" = the name of your samba server.

Sounds harmless enough. I'm guessing that "name of your samba server" here = "tomc-desktop". So, on my client I add "192.168.1.2 tomc-desktop" to the list of similar lines at the top of the file, and save it.

Now in dolphin, Places > Network > Samba shares > workgroup produces a dir list with a single entry: "Tomc-desktop (tomc-desktop server (Samba, Ubuntu))"

Clicking that puts this in the dir list address line in Dolphin: "smb://tomc-desktop/" and this in the dir list: "homes". Uh oh. No such animal (er...dir), which is exactly what I am told when I click it - "...does not exist". That "homes" looks identical to what's given in this section of my host (desktop) smb.conf file"

Code:

#======================= Share Definitions =======================

# Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit)
# to enable the default home directory shares. This will share each
# user's home directory as \\server\username
[homes]
  comment = Home Directories
  browseable = yes

Did I not set that up right? I very carefully followed telengard's instructions, I thought. But..."homes"? Huh? It's

Code:

/home/tomc

to get to my user account. But I'm probably hopelessly confused at this point.

For what it's worth: I just installed the Samba GUI smb4k. Looks promising (except that I don't grasp most of what it's showing me). Oddly, in its "Network Neighborhood" display, it shows my "WORKGROUP" twice.

Installing smb4k on my client box, I see WORKGROUP listed once, and all the pieces are there which appear on my desktop listing. Encouraging.

When I click on the "homes" item, I'm asked for a username. I give "tomc", which yields a "mount error(13): Permission denied." I'm then referred to "man mount.cifs", but honestly that isn't too helpful to me. Not sure what to do at this point.

Awaiting further instructions...

**Telengard** · Jan 19, 2010, 08:52 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Is TOMC-DESKTOP the name of the computer with the Samba server (the samba package) installed on it?

I told you to use Konqueror because I have never tried using the SMB:// protocol in Dolphin. Maybe it will work, but you are experimenting with something on your own then.

Never access the //TOMC-DESKTOP/HOMES share directly! It is a special share and does not work that way!

Instead, you must access the share by user name. Remember the user name you used with the smbpasswd command on TOMC-DESKTOP? Put that same user name into Konqueror's location bar as shown below:

smb://tomc-desktop/USERNAME

**Telengard** · Jan 19, 2010, 08:59 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Originally posted by toad

Code:

kdesu systemsettings

I think we all use kdesudo now.

Go to advanced and select Samba.

That UI hasn't existed since Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex AFAIK. It is there on my Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron system, but not on my Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope system.

**toad** · Jan 19, 2010, 09:02 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Blast, I'm sorry, I'm running ArchLinux with vanilla KDE 4.3 still. Perhaps I should crank up my old virtualbox again to see what kubuntu is actually like these days!

Sorry for any confusion...

**GreyGeek** · Jan 19, 2010, 09:12 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Hey Toad, you just highlight what is so great about this forum... it doesn't matter which distro you use, a lot of people come here for the help and the fellowship. Even Windows users! 8)

**Telengard** · Jan 19, 2010, 09:57 AM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Originally posted by toad

Blast, I'm sorry, I'm running ArchLinux with vanilla KDE 4.3 still. Perhaps I should crank up my old virtualbox again to see what kubuntu is actually like these days!

Sorry for any confusion...

Sorry if I sounded smug. I just don't want Tom being sidetracked when he is so close to the finish.

Why do the Kubuntu devs remove some of the most useful parts of the UI anyway? I have always used Disk Management and File Sharing, and I miss them lots.

**tomcloyd** · Jan 19, 2010, 03:22 PM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Well, nuts. It worked, in Konqueror.

Code:

smb://tomc-desktop/tomc

led to a request for username and password (I'd never gotten this far before), and then to full access to my tomc account on my desktop. I'm dazzled.

Very curious about Dolphin, I next went to that and tried exactly the same procedure with exactly the same result. So Konqueror is not the crucial difference.

Finally, after closing that instance of Dolphin, I went to another, and tried to access my desktop through the Places > Network > Samba Shares , etc. path. That too worked.

Why the success NOW? After some experimentation, I found that what crucial was that line I inserted in my client (netbook) /etc/host file -

Code:

192.168.1.2

- below the lines which appear to be addressing localhost and tomc-laptop.

Removing that line and rebooting, I find that network access (access to tomc-desktop) is no longer possible. Restoring it, I'm able again to get to tomc-desktop. Bingo.

The idea for inserting that line came from here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Se...samba%20server

So, it appears that I'm connected, at least from my netbook. I have more tests to run:
* can I print to my printer, connected to my desktop, from my netbook? (I think so, but -

)
* can I access my laptop from my desktop - maybe by similarly modifying the /etc/hosts file on my desktop? I sure hope so.

In any case, while getting to this point was a bit quirky, I have to say that all in all Samba was, for me less, less crazy-making than the other things I tried, probably because it tends to keep a lot of the nerd-speak out of sight. I wish I had time to master that stuff, but I don't. I just need to get work done, like 99% of the rest of the world.

I'm inclined to sum all this up and put a how-to into the appropriate forum section, and even the Ubuntu community documentation (where others might more easily amend it, if needed). In part I'm thinking that this is needed because NOTHING I found anywhere, including a far amount of the comment elicited in this thread (for which I'm VERY grateful, believe me), fully reflected working on and an updated Kubuntu 9.10 OS, using current tools (e.g., Dolphin, not Konquerer). I know that keeping things uptodate is an endless chore, but maybe with some help I can write this and it'll be useful to the next person. I'd be nice not to always be a taker, here!

Comments?

(Telengard - you pushed and prodded me to this point - thank you for hanging in there - and likewise to all others who made contributions - thank you!)

**Telengard** · Jan 19, 2010, 04:00 PM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Glad to see you finally got results. I don't know what is going on in the /etc/hosts file. Samba is capable of resolving NetBIOS names on its own without relying on standard name resolution, although I believe it may fall back on that if needs be.

Originally posted by tomcloyd

* can I print to my printer, connected to my desktop, from my netbook? (I think so, but -

)

Yes, the Samba server provides access to shared printers, but this option must be enabled in /etc/samba/smb.conf. If you run the smbtree command in Konsole it should list a share named print$.

Unfortunately I can not offer any help in configuring a Samba shared printer because I don't know how to configure printers in Kubuntu at all. So far every printer I've plugged in has just worked without any configuration.

**tomcloyd** · Jan 19, 2010, 04:32 PM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Followup: "can I access my laptop from my desktop - maybe by similarly modifying the /etc/hosts file on my desktop?"
ANSWER: Nope. Goofy idea, upon second thought. If there's a way to create two-way access via Samba, I haven't found it yet. THIS isn't it, for sure.

Also haven't gotten printer to work yet. It won't accept my authentication. Will work on it more later.

**Snowhog** · Jan 19, 2010, 06:21 PM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

I haven't taken the time to read this entire thread - it is getting quite long - so I don't know if this was already asked and answered: Are both machines; the netbook and the desktop; running Kubuntu, or a mix of Kubuntu and Windows? If it's Kubuntu and Kubuntu, then, if using unison, just follow the Ubuntu Documentation > Community Documentation > Unison instructions.

**tomcloyd** · Jan 20, 2010, 10:40 PM

Re: how to connect desktop and netbook through router?

Thanks. Because "SSH" didn't mean anything to me at the time. I missed completely that Unison could use this type of networking. I'm now working on it. Samba is great for giving me manual file access, from my netbook to my dekstop, but I see no way to use it with Unison, even though https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Unison says "In order to use Unison with Ubuntu and Microsoft Windows, you will need to have Samba installed and setup." I don't understand how samba can be used with Linux+Windows but not Linux+Linux, as is my case. However, this whole project has eaten up days, and I don't have time to chase all rabbits. I desperately need to get to the finish line on this.

On with SSH:

1. I have installed the ssh server on my desktop (the client being installed by default on all Kubuntu OSs, including my netbook).
2. I have configured it according to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SS...SH/Configuring
3. Somehow, I actually connected client to server, and ran a test unison profile, and it worked. Very cool.

But, I cannot replicate this, and I don't know what I did to foul things up. I've very carefully checked everything, tried several modifications of my sshd_config file, restarted the ssh server, and tried again to connect from my netbook. No go.

Here's what happens:

Code:

$ ssh -v localhost
OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2, OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to localhost [::1] port 22.
debug1: connect to address ::1 port 22: Connection refused
debug1: Connecting to localhost [127.0.0.1] port 22.
debug1: connect to address 127.0.0.1 port 22: Connection refused
ssh: connect to host localhost port 22: Connection refused

The only modifications I've made to my sshd_config file are:

Code:

RSAAuthentication no
PubkeyAuthentication no
.
.
.
PasswordAuthentication no
.
.
.
AllowUsers tomc@tomc-laptop

I tried changing the lines

RSAAuthentication no
PubkeyAuthentication no

back to yes, but that made no difference. (Yes, I restarted the server.) I'm simply being refused a connection from my laptop, and I don't know why.

I have no more ideas at this point. Can anyone point out my error, so I can get this going?

Also, I assume that I have to log onto my ssh server BEFORE running unison. That's what I did the one time I got it to work. But then I was asked for a password, in spite of my setting up the config file to avoid this, I thought. My Unison run has about 20 profile files to run. It is not possible to manually supply a password for each. How do I solve this problem?

Thanks for any help.