On the PC, type the command net view \\BIGSERVER . You will need to do this from within a DOS prompt window. You should get back a list of shares available on the server.

If you get a message network name not found or similar error, then NetBIOS name resolution is not working. This is usually caused by a problem in nmbd . To overcome it, you could do one of the following (you only need to choose one of them):

If you get a message “ invalid network name ” or “ bad password error, ” then apply the same fixes as for the smbclient -L test. In particular, make sure your hosts allow line is correct (see the man pages).

Also, do not overlook that fact that when the workstation requests the connection to the Samba server, it will attempt to connect using the name with which you logged onto your Windows machine. You need to make sure that an account exists on your Samba server with that exact same name and password.

If you get a message “ specified computer is not receiving requests ” or similar error, it probably means that the host is not contactable via TCP services. Check to see if the host is running TCP wrappers, and if so, add an entry in the hosts.allow file for your client (or subnet, and so on.)

Run the command net use x: \\BIGSERVER\TMP . You should be prompted for a password, then you should get a command completed successfully message. If not, then your PC software is incorrectly installed or your smb.conf is incorrect. Make sure your hosts allow and other config lines in smb.conf are correct.

It's also possible that the server can't work out what username to connect you as. To see if this is the problem, add the line user = username to the [tmp] section of smb.conf where username is the username corresponding to the password you typed. If you find this fixes things, you may need the username mapping option.

It might also be the case that your client only sends encrypted passwords and you have encrypt passwords = no in smb.conf. Change this setting to `yes' to fix this.

Run the command nmblookup -M testgroup where testgroup is the name of the workgroup that your Samba server and Windows PCs belong to. You should get back the IP address of the master browser for that workgroup.

If you do not, then the election process has failed. Wait a minute to see if it is just being slow, then try again. If it still fails after that, then look at the browsing options you have set in smb.conf. Make sure you have preferred master = yes to ensure that an election is held at startup.

From file manager, try to browse the server. Your Samba server should appear in the browse list of your local workgroup (or the one you specified in smb.conf). You should be able to double-click on the name of the server and get a list of shares. If you get the error message “invalid password,” you are probably running Windows NT and it is refusing to browse a server that has no encrypted password capability and is in user-level security mode. In this case, either set security = server and password server = Windows_NT_Machine in your smb.conf file or make sure encrypt passwords is set to “yes”.