Interact Between Windows and Linux Systems
SAMBA is an ambiguous word. It is generally know for the Brazilian dance. But here I am not going to talk about it I am going to talk about samba which means “Samba is an Open Source/Free Software suite that provides seamless file and print services to SMB/CIFS clients”
If you cannot understand it no problem.
It means “ samba allows file sharing and print options between the systems that run Windows and Linux ”
The name samba is derived from the SMB (Server message block) . SMB is the standard protocol used by the windows network file system. It runs mostly on all Unix and Unix-like system and also on Apples MAC OS X SERVER..
The initial release of the samba was in the year 1992 and the stable release was in the done just 3 days back 11 Dec 2012.
This file sharing is maintained by the protocols known as CIFS “Common Internet File System”, CIFS is the latest incarnation of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol.
There are two main programs on samba that perform the magic is smbd and nmbd and their function is to implement four basic CIFS services and they are
- File & print services
- Authentication and Authorization
- Name resolution
- Service announcement (browsing)
smbd also provides a way to restrict privilege by providing authentication and authorization i.e you access the file or print the document by giving password.
Ok ok !! I will break here this is going too complex.
On Linux systems you can configure using smb.conf. this is text file which looks similar to *.ini file on Windows . The file structure contents are fully documented, so as to give administrators a running head start, and smb.conf can be manipulated using swat.
If you are planning to having a file sharing software on your PC go for SAMBA and follow this link to how to install SAMBA
http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/install.html
Happy sharing 
2012-12-14 05:43:24
Source: http://www.techiestuffs.com/blog/interact-between-windows-and-linux-systems/
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