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<refentry id="smb.conf.5">
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>smb.conf</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv>
<refname>smb.conf</refname>
<refpurpose>The configuration file for the Samba suite</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsect1>
<title>SYNOPSIS</title>
<para>The <filename moreinfo="none">smb.conf</filename> file is a configuration
file for the Samba suite. <filename moreinfo="none">smb.conf</filename> contains
runtime configuration information for the Samba programs. The <filename moreinfo="none">smb.conf</filename> file
is designed to be configured and administered by the <citerefentry><refentrytitle>swat</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry> program. The complete
description of the file format and possible parameters held within
are here for reference purposes.</para> </refsect1>
<refsect1 id="FILEFORMATSECT">
<title>FILE FORMAT</title>
<para>The file consists of sections and parameters. A section
begins with the name of the section in square brackets and continues
until the next section begins. Sections contain parameters of the
form</para>
<para><replaceable>name</replaceable> = <replaceable>value
</replaceable></para>
<para>The file is line-based - that is, each newline-terminated
line represents either a comment, a section name or a parameter.</para>
<para>Section and parameter names are not case sensitive.</para>
<para>Only the first equals sign in a parameter is significant.
Whitespace before or after the first equals sign is discarded.
Leading, trailing and internal whitespace in section and parameter
names is irrelevant. Leading and trailing whitespace in a parameter
value is discarded. Internal whitespace within a parameter value
is retained verbatim.</para>
<para>Any line beginning with a semicolon (';') or a hash ('#')
character is ignored, as are lines containing only whitespace.</para>
<para>Any line ending in a '\' is continued
on the next line in the customary UNIX fashion.</para>
<para>The values following the equals sign in parameters are all
either a string (no quotes needed) or a boolean, which may be given
as yes/no, 0/1 or true/false. Case is not significant in boolean
values, but is preserved in string values. Some items such as
create modes are numeric.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>SECTION DESCRIPTIONS</title>
<para>Each section in the configuration file (except for the
[global] section) describes a shared resource (known
as a "share"). The section name is the name of the
shared resource and the parameters within the section define
the shares attributes.</para>
<para>There are three special sections, [global],
[homes] and [printers], which are
described under <emphasis>special sections</emphasis>. The
following notes apply to ordinary section descriptions.</para>
<para>A share consists of a directory to which access is being
given plus a description of the access rights which are granted
to the user of the service. Some housekeeping options are
also specifiable.</para>
<para>Sections are either file share services (used by the
client as an extension of their native file systems) or
printable services (used by the client to access print services
on the host running the server).</para>
<para>Sections may be designated <emphasis>guest</emphasis> services,
in which case no password is required to access them. A specified
UNIX <emphasis>guest account</emphasis> is used to define access
privileges in this case.</para>
<para>Sections other than guest services will require a password
to access them. The client provides the username. As older clients
only provide passwords and not usernames, you may specify a list
of usernames to check against the password using the "user ="
option in the share definition. For modern clients such as
Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000, this should not be necessary.</para>
<para>Note that the access rights granted by the server are
masked by the access rights granted to the specified or guest
UNIX user by the host system. The server does not grant more
access than the host system grants.</para>
<para>The following sample section defines a file space share.
The user has write access to the path <filename moreinfo="none">/home/bar</filename>.
The share is accessed via the share name "foo":</para>
<screen format="linespecific">
<computeroutput moreinfo="none">
[foo]
path = /home/bar
read only = no
</computeroutput>
</screen>
<para>The following sample section defines a printable share.
The share is readonly, but printable. That is, the only write
access permitted is via calls to open, write to and close a
spool file. The <emphasis>guest ok</emphasis> parameter means
access will be permitted as the default guest user (specified
elsewhere):</para>
<screen format="linespecific">
<computeroutput moreinfo="none">
[aprinter]
path = /usr/spool/public
read only = yes
printable = yes
guest ok = yes
</computeroutput>
</screen>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>SPECIAL SECTIONS</title>
<refsect2>
<title>The [global] section</title>
<para>parameters in this section apply to the server
as a whole, or are defaults for sections which do not
specifically define certain items. See the notes
under PARAMETERS for more information.</para>
</refsect2>
<refsect2 id="HOMESECT">
<title>The [homes] section</title>
<para>If a section called homes is included in the
configuration file, services connecting clients to their
home directories can be created on the fly by the server.</para>
<para>When the connection request is made, the existing
sections are scanned. If a match is found, it is used. If no
match is found, the requested section name is treated as a
user name and looked up in the local password file. If the
name exists and the correct password has been given, a share is
created by cloning the [homes] section.</para>
<para>Some modifications are then made to the newly
created share:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>The share name is changed from homes to
the located username.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If no path was given, the path is set to
the user's home directory.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>If you decide to use a <emphasis>path =</emphasis> line
in your [homes] section then you may find it useful
to use the %S macro. For example :</para>
<para><userinput moreinfo="none">path = /data/pchome/%S</userinput></para>
<para>would be useful if you have different home directories
for your PCs than for UNIX access.</para>
<para>This is a fast and simple way to give a large number
of clients access to their home directories with a minimum
of fuss.</para>
<para>A similar process occurs if the requested section
name is "homes", except that the share name is not
changed to that of the requesting user. This method of using
the [homes] section works well if different users share
a client PC.</para>
<para>The [homes] section can specify all the parameters
a normal service section can specify, though some make more sense
than others. The following is a typical and suitable [homes]
section:</para>
<screen format="linespecific">
<computeroutput moreinfo="none">
[homes]
read only = no
</computeroutput>
</screen>
<para>An important point is that if guest access is specified
in the [homes] section, all home directories will be
visible to all clients <emphasis>without a password</emphasis>.
In the very unlikely event that this is actually desirable, it
would be wise to also specify <emphasis>read only
access</emphasis>.</para>
<para>Note that the <emphasis>browseable</emphasis> flag for
auto home directories will be inherited from the global browseable
flag, not the [homes] browseable flag. This is useful as
it means setting <emphasis>browseable = no</emphasis> in
the [homes] section will hide the [homes] share but make
any auto home directories visible.</para>
</refsect2>
<refsect2 id="PRINTERSSECT">
<title>The [printers] section</title>
<para>This section works like [homes],
but for printers.</para>
<para>If a [printers] section occurs in the
configuration file, users are able to connect to any printer
specified in the local host's printcap file.</para>
<para>When a connection request is made, the existing sections
are scanned. If a match is found, it is used. If no match is found,
but a [homes] section exists, it is used as described
above. Otherwise, the requested section name is treated as a
printer name and the appropriate printcap file is scanned to see
if the requested section name is a valid printer share name. If
a match is found, a new printer share is created by cloning
the [printers] section.</para>
<para>A few modifications are then made to the newly created
share:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>The share name is set to the located printer
name</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If no printer name was given, the printer name
is set to the located printer name</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If the share does not permit guest access and
no username was given, the username is set to the located
printer name.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Note that the [printers] service MUST be
printable - if you specify otherwise, the server will refuse
to load the configuration file.</para>
<para>Typically the path specified would be that of a
world-writeable spool directory with the sticky bit set on
it. A typical [printers] entry would look like
this:</para>
<screen format="linespecific"><computeroutput moreinfo="none">
[printers]
path = /usr/spool/public
guest ok = yes
printable = yes
</computeroutput></screen>
<para>All aliases given for a printer in the printcap file
are legitimate printer names as far as the server is concerned.
If your printing subsystem doesn't work like that, you will have
to set up a pseudo-printcap. This is a file consisting of one or
more lines like this:</para>
<screen format="linespecific">
<computeroutput moreinfo="none">
alias|alias|alias|alias...
</computeroutput>
</screen>
<para>Each alias should be an acceptable printer name for
your printing subsystem. In the [global] section, specify
the new file as your printcap. The server will then only recognize
names found in your pseudo-printcap, which of course can contain
whatever aliases you like. The same technique could be used
simply to limit access to a subset of your local printers.</para>
<para>An alias, by the way, is defined as any component of the
first entry of a printcap record. Records are separated by newlines,
components (if there are more than one) are separated by vertical
bar symbols ('|').</para>
<note><para>On SYSV systems which use lpstat to determine what
printers are defined on the system you may be able to use
"printcap name = lpstat" to automatically obtain a list
of printers. See the "printcap name" option
for more details.</para></note>
</refsect2>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>PARAMETERS</title>
<para>parameters define the specific attributes of sections.</para>
<para>Some parameters are specific to the [global] section
(e.g., <emphasis>security</emphasis>). Some parameters are usable
in all sections (e.g., <emphasis>create mode</emphasis>). All others
are permissible only in normal sections. For the purposes of the
following descriptions the [homes] and [printers]
sections will be considered normal. The letter <emphasis>G</emphasis>
in parentheses indicates that a parameter is specific to the
[global] section. The letter <emphasis>S</emphasis>
indicates that a parameter can be specified in a service specific
section. Note that all <emphasis>S</emphasis> parameters can also be specified in
the [global] section - in which case they will define
the default behavior for all services.</para>
<para>parameters are arranged here in alphabetical order - this may
not create best bedfellows, but at least you can find them! Where
there are synonyms, the preferred synonym is described, others refer
to the preferred synonym.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>VARIABLE SUBSTITUTIONS</title>
<para>Many of the strings that are settable in the config file
can take substitutions. For example the option "path =
/tmp/%u" would be interpreted as "path =
/tmp/john" if the user connected with the username john.</para>
<para>These substitutions are mostly noted in the descriptions below,
but there are some general substitutions which apply whenever they
might be relevant. These are:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>%U</term>
<listitem><para>session user name (the user name that the client
wanted, not necessarily the same as the one they got).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%G</term>
<listitem><para>primary group name of %U.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%h</term>
<listitem><para>the Internet hostname that Samba is running
on.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%m</term>
<listitem><para>the NetBIOS name of the client machine
(very useful).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%L</term>
<listitem><para>the NetBIOS name of the server. This allows you
to change your config based on what the client calls you. Your
server can have a "dual personality".</para>
<para>Note that this parameter is not available when Samba listens
on port 445, as clients no longer send this information </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%M</term>
<listitem><para>the Internet name of the client machine.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%R</term>
<listitem><para>the selected protocol level after
protocol negotiation. It can be one of CORE, COREPLUS,
LANMAN1, LANMAN2 or NT1.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%d</term>
<listitem><para>The process id of the current server
process.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%a</term>
<listitem><para>the architecture of the remote
machine. Only some are recognized, and those may not be
100% reliable. It currently recognizes Samba, WfWg, Win95,
WinNT and Win2k. Anything else will be known as
"UNKNOWN". If it gets it wrong then sending a level
3 log to <ulink url="mailto:samba@samba.org">samba@samba.org
</ulink> should allow it to be fixed.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%I</term>
<listitem><para>The IP address of the client machine.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%T</term>
<listitem><para>the current date and time.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%D</term>
<listitem><para>Name of the domain or workgroup of the current user.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%$(<replaceable>envvar</replaceable>)</term>
<listitem><para>The value of the environment variable
<replaceable>envar</replaceable>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>The following substitutes apply only to some configuration options(only those
that are used when a connection has been established):</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>%S</term>
<listitem><para>the name of the current service, if any.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%P</term>
<listitem><para>the root directory of the current service,
if any.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%u</term>
<listitem><para>user name of the current service, if any.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%g</term>
<listitem><para>primary group name of %u.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%H</term>
<listitem><para>the home directory of the user given
by %u.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%N</term>
<listitem><para>the name of your NIS home directory server.
This is obtained from your NIS auto.map entry. If you have
not compiled Samba with the <emphasis>--with-automount</emphasis>
option then this value will be the same as %L.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>%p</term>
<listitem><para>the path of the service's home directory,
obtained from your NIS auto.map entry. The NIS auto.map entry
is split up as "%N:%p".</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>There are some quite creative things that can be done
with these substitutions and other smb.conf options.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id="NAMEMANGLINGSECT">
<title>NAME MANGLING</title>
<para>Samba supports "name mangling" so that DOS and
Windows clients can use files that don't conform to the 8.3 format.
It can also be set to adjust the case of 8.3 format filenames.</para>
<para>There are several options that control the way mangling is
performed, and they are grouped here rather than listed separately.
For the defaults look at the output of the testparm program. </para>
<para>All of these options can be set separately for each service
(or globally, of course). </para>
<para>The options are: </para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>mangle case = yes/no</term>
<listitem><para> controls if names that have characters that
aren't of the "default" case are mangled. For example,
if this is yes then a name like "Mail" would be mangled.
Default <emphasis>no</emphasis>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>case sensitive = yes/no</term>
<listitem><para>controls whether filenames are case sensitive. If
they aren't then Samba must do a filename search and match on passed
names. Default <emphasis>no</emphasis>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>default case = upper/lower</term>
<listitem><para>controls what the default case is for new
filenames. Default <emphasis>lower</emphasis>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>preserve case = yes/no</term>
<listitem><para>controls if new files are created with the
case that the client passes, or if they are forced to be the
"default" case. Default <emphasis>yes</emphasis>.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>short preserve case = yes/no</term>
<listitem><para>controls if new files which conform to 8.3 syntax,
that is all in upper case and of suitable length, are created
upper case, or if they are forced to be the "default"
case. This option can be use with "preserve case = yes"
to permit long filenames to retain their case, while short names
are lowercased. Default <emphasis>yes</emphasis>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>By default, Samba 3.0 has the same semantics as a Windows
NT server, in that it is case insensitive but case preserving.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id="VALIDATIONSECT">
<title>NOTE ABOUT USERNAME/PASSWORD VALIDATION</title>
<para>There are a number of ways in which a user can connect
to a service. The server uses the following steps in determining
if it will allow a connection to a specified service. If all the
steps fail, then the connection request is rejected. However, if one of the
steps succeeds, then the following steps are not checked.</para>
<para>If the service is marked "guest only = yes" and the
server is running with share-level security ("security = share")
then steps 1 to 5 are skipped.</para>
<orderedlist continuation="restarts" inheritnum="ignore" numeration="arabic">
<listitem><para>If the client has passed a username/password
pair and that username/password pair is validated by the UNIX
system's password programs then the connection is made as that
username. Note that this includes the
\\server\service%<replaceable>username</replaceable> method of passing
a username.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If the client has previously registered a username
with the system and now supplies a correct password for that
username then the connection is allowed.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The client's NetBIOS name and any previously
used user names are checked against the supplied password, if
they match then the connection is allowed as the corresponding
user.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If the client has previously validated a
username/password pair with the server and the client has passed
the validation token then that username is used. </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If a "user = " field is given in the
<filename moreinfo="none">smb.conf</filename> file for the service and the client
has supplied a password, and that password matches (according to
the UNIX system's password checking) with one of the usernames
from the "user =" field then the connection is made as
the username in the "user =" line. If one
of the username in the "user =" list begins with a
'@' then that name expands to a list of names in
the group of the same name.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If the service is a guest service then a
connection is made as the username given in the "guest
account =" for the service, irrespective of the
supplied password.</para></listitem>
</orderedlist>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>COMPLETE LIST OF GLOBAL PARAMETERS</title>
<para>Here is a list of all global parameters. See the section of
each parameter for details. Note that some are synonyms.</para>
<xi:include href="parameters.global.xml" parse="xml" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>COMPLETE LIST OF SERVICE PARAMETERS</title>
<para>Here is a list of all service parameters. See the section on
each parameter for details. Note that some are synonyms.</para>
<xi:include href="parameters.service.xml" parse="xml" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>EXPLANATION OF EACH PARAMETER</title>
<xi:include href="parameters.all.xml" parse="xml" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>WARNINGS</title>
<para>Although the configuration file permits service names
to contain spaces, your client software may not. Spaces will
be ignored in comparisons anyway, so it shouldn't be a
problem - but be aware of the possibility.</para>
<para>On a similar note, many clients - especially DOS clients -
limit service names to eight characters. <citerefentry><refentrytitle>smbd</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry> has no such limitation, but attempts to connect from such
clients will fail if they truncate the service names. For this reason
you should probably keep your service names down to eight characters
in length.</para>
<para>Use of the [homes] and [printers] special sections make life
for an administrator easy, but the various combinations of default
attributes can be tricky. Take extreme care when designing these
sections. In particular, ensure that the permissions on spool
directories are correct.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>VERSION</title>
<para>This man page is correct for version 3.0 of the Samba suite.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>SEE ALSO</title>
<para>
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>samba</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>, <citerefentry><refentrytitle>smbpasswd</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>, <citerefentry><refentrytitle>swat</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>, <citerefentry><refentrytitle>smbd</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>, <citerefentry><refentrytitle>nmbd</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>, <citerefentry><refentrytitle>smbclient</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>, <citerefentry><refentrytitle>nmblookup</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>, <citerefentry><refentrytitle>testparm</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>, <citerefentry><refentrytitle>testprns</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<title>AUTHOR</title>
<para>The original Samba software and related utilities
were created by Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed
by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar
to the way the Linux kernel is developed.</para>
<para>The original Samba man pages were written by Karl Auer.
The man page sources were converted to YODL format (another
excellent piece of Open Source software, available at <ulink url="ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/">
ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/</ulink>) and updated for the Samba 2.0
release by Jeremy Allison. The conversion to DocBook for
Samba 2.2 was done by Gerald Carter. The conversion to DocBook XML 4.2
for Samba 3.0 was done by Alexander Bokovoy.</para>
</refsect1>
</refentry>