Using Samba, 2nd Edition


 * Author:
 * Jay Ts, Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown


 * Publisher:
 * O'Reilly Media, Inc.


 * Copyright:
 * 2005, O'Reilly Media, Inc.


 * ISBN:
 * 0-596-00256-4


 * Pages:
 * 556


 * Price:
 * $39.95 US, $61.95 CA, £28.50 UK


 * Links:
 * Cover
 * O'Reilly Catalog

=Review= This book is very useful both as a reference book and a conceptual book for those that are interested in how Samba works, as well as how the SMB protocol works. At this point, the 2nd Edition is a little outdated, but it still covers everything except the more complex Windows 2k (and higher) topics such as Active Directory.

Being the type of person that needs to know how a component works before being comfortable with using it's actual workings, I found the conceptual part of the book the most helpful overall. It explained the evolution of SMB, its various versions, and exactly how compatible Samba is. There are SMB packet diagrams, discussions on the specific mechanics of domain master negotiation and various other intricate aspects of the protocol, and various other fairly involved topics which get covered in enough depth to have an understanding of what a SMB server does and when. Having the conceptual knowledge behind the function of an SMB server is greatly supplemental to the actual implementation of Samba, and this book definitely helps in that area.

Once the concepts are discussed, the book gets into specific configuration implementations, as well as touching up on any 'conceptual' aspects of the specific configuration. There are example configurations for anything a home user would have interest in, as well as more advanced topics such as setting up a PDC with roaming profiles, slave servers, and gateways.

The book concludes with a complete reference of every configuration option available to Samba, which tells you in which part of the smb.conf the option should be used, and to what capacity. While every given scenario isn't covered in the book itself, the appendix/reference part is more than easily discernible by the time a person gets to the end and is ready to start implementing.

The only thing that I found somewhat irritating about Using Samba is that it didn't talk much about initial system-side permissions when setting up roaming profiles. While not necessarily part of Samba, it is a critical step in getting functional roaming profiles, and it was a step that wasn't quite clear to me, despite having a fairly firm grasp on Unix filesystem permission schemes. Other than that, the book is quite complete, well written, and even fairly enjoyable to read - unlike many technical books out their. Good job, O'Reilly.

Ben Hodgens