Using Samba - 1st Edition
ISBN 1-56592-449-5 Price £25 UK approximately
Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown and Peter Kelly
9 Chapters, 6 Appendices, Collophon and Index in 385 pages
Chapter List
1 Learning the Samba
2 Installing Samba on a Unix System
3 Configuring Windows Clients
4 Disk Shares
5 Browsing and Advanced Disk Shares
6 Users, Security, and Domains
7 Printing and Name Resolution
8 Additional Samba Information
9 Troubleshooting Samba
Appendix A
Configuring Samba with SSL
Appendix
B
Samba Performance Tuning
Appendix
C
Samba Configuration Option Quick Reference
Appendix
D
Summary of Samba Daemons and Commands
Appendix
E
Downloading Samba with CVS
Appendix
F
Sample Configuration file
Synopsis
This is all about how to get a windows machine to talk to a Unix box. There are no other books like this one. Only James Joyce comes close, prepare to be devastated.
Review
Those of you who have only ever seen MS Windows will not have been able to understand that NT4 and Windows 2000 was replaced with something else a long time ago. Samba is at the heart of a Unix system. It's a utility program that is a file and printer server for heterogeneous networks. Several things hit you in the eye as soon as you pick up the book and look at it. In the top right hand corner of the front cover it says "Officially adopted by the Samba team". Inside the back cover is a CD which at first looks completely innocent. When you put it into your computer to look at it you'll find all sorts of stuff for Sco Unix, HP-UX, DEC Alpha and all of the others as well as Linux.
Chapter one starts with some introductory comments about the SMB/CIFS network and shows how easy it is to connect windows machines to Unix boxen. Installation of Samba into a Unix system comes next. Configuration of Windows clients is next. Chapter four gets started on the finer points of advanced configuration of disk shares which is finished off in chapter five. Security issues are mentioned in chapter six although it looks as though many people have a wider experience of what is required ? The rest of the book fills in a few holes and legends or rumours which might otherwise have been missed. Seen from front to back it is well thought out as a technical publication.
If you want world domination of Linux and you want it now then this book is for you :-) I've read computing books for twenty years and I've never seen anything like this one. The colophon at page 399 finishes the whole thing off with a description of Bucorvus cafer or in English the African ground hornbill. without this the book wouldn't have been the complete masterpiece that it really is ?? If you want a pint of bitter you buy a pint of bitter and not the other stuff that looks like plastic showcase stuff.
"Colophon"
" Our book is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.
The animal on the cover of Using Samba is an African ground hornbill (Bucorvus cafer). This type of bird is one of the fifty hornbill species. The African ground hornbill is a medium to large sized bird characterised by bright red waddle under a very long beak, dark-coloured body and wings, long eyelashes, and short legs. Like all hornbills, it has a casque, a large but lightweight growth on the top of its beak, which grows more folds as the bird ages. It is the only ground-dwelling species of hornbill, though it is able to fly when necessary. It lives in the grasslands of southern and eastern Africa, and nets in the foliage of dense trees, not in nest holes in the ground as other hornbills do. Its diet includes mostly fruit as well as large insects and small mammals. The African ground hornbill is considered to be sacred by many Africans, and as such this bird is part of many legends and superstitions."
Lot of Bill there eh ?? :-)
Review by Richard
Ibbotson
