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[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

Here is the success I can report using BL3's smbclient to connect to
Win98SE and Win2K (NO SERVICE PACKS APPLIED) shares, browse them and
upload/download files.  I found a helpful article at
http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/8897/8897.html that
helped me figure out some basics.  Take a look--it's well-written and
basic enough to be comprehensible to most, I think.  Written by a Windows
user.

First, I enabled sharing of drive C on both Win98SE and Win2K.  This is
probably a pretty bad idea security-wise: better to create a special
folder that will be shared and share it only.  I did it this way just for
testing purposes, and now that testing is finished I'll undo it.  If you
connect to the internet with the machine you'll be sharing, I strongly
discourage sharing the whole C drive.  That caveat made, you are the final
authority on your own system's security.

On the passwords issue: I suggest password protecting your share.  Windows
is insecure enough that it doesn't need additional security holes like
unprotected shares.  Again, this is especially important if you're
connecting to the internet with this machine.  Setting a password for the
share in Win98SE was simple and should be self-evident, so I won't go into
that.  Then, to connect to that computer using BL3's smbclient, I had to
first find out the computer's network name and note the name of the shared
drive I had created.  Once I knew those things, connecting to the share
was a simple matter of issuing

---------------------------------------------------
smbclient //target-box-name/target-share-name
---------------------------------------------------

Once I issued that, I was prompted for a password.  I gave the password
and was dumped at the samba prompt (smb/> or something that looks like
that).  From here, using commands like command-line ftp uses, I was able
to browse files and upload/download.  This was surprisingly simple and
worked like a charm.

For Win2K it was a bit more complex.  But it also worked.  When I tried
the above steps, I was prompted for a password: I had no way of knowing
what password it wanted since, when I created the shared drive on Win2K
there was no option for setting a password.  I entered my administrator
password for Win2K but that didn't work.  Next, I tried something from the
article I gave the link for above, as follows

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
smbclient //target-box-name/target-share-name -I 192.168.1.x -U me%passwd
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

It connected fine, and I was able to browse the share and upload/download
files.  So, I can report success with BL3's smbclient on Win2K as well.
Apparently Win2K requires the added step of identifying the shared drive
machine by IP address.  And to browse the share and work with it, a valid
user name and password for the Win2K system must be used ("me" was my
username on the Win2K system and "password" that user's password on the
same system).  Maybe there are other ways in Win2K to specify/setup users
that can browse shares, but probably it will be most straightforward to
just use a regular user you already have set up.

All this can be done without setting up a smb.conf file.  It might be
easier to set one up in the case of the Win2K machine though, since it's
kind of complicated to enter in all that stuff at the command line and
smbclient could, apprently, get all its information from the conf file if
one were set up.  I didn't try that, so can't give any further info about
it.

So, it seems Steven's smbclient for BL3 works fine with versions of
Windows up to 2000 (without any service packs).  Questions that remain for
me are: would having service packs applied to Win2K have any effect on
smbclient's ability to connect?  And: will this work with XP and how does
installation of service packs affect those versions?

Finally, I think smbclient, while useful, should come with some warning.
It should be noted that smbclient, while allowing one to access Windows
shares from BL3, is not exactly user-friendly.  Because of some limited
experience using commad-line ftp, it wasn't very difficult for me.  The
commands like "get" and "put" were familiar to me and seemed to translate
well between command-line ftp and smbclient.  But I think alot of BL users
are going to expect some kind of graphical interface to ineract with their
Windows machines, and they should be disbused of the notion that smbclient
is going to provide anything like that.  Directing them to the article I
provided a link for could help them get an idea of what they're getting
into.

So, my testing with smbclient for BL3 on Win98SE and Win2K systems was a
complete success.  Thanks for providing this package, Steven.  This is
another great enhancement for BL3.

James

PS  Is there any further testing of smbclient you'd like me to do?  If I
ever get access to an XP machine I could try that, but no opportunities
come immediately to mind.

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Sheldon Isaac wrote:

> Using BL3.32 with bzimage on machine 'other', Ethernet crossover cabled
> to machine 'asus' which has Windows 98 First Edition.
>
> > > smbclient \\\\asus\\E
> > > the response is
> > > Added interface ip=127.0.0.1  bcast=127.255.255.255  nmask=255.0.0.0
> > > error connecting to 192.168.1.3:139
>
> > Have you tried:  smbclient -L asus
>
> Nowadays (depending on the setting on the Win98 machine, see below), the
> response to that command line is: [and I don't know why the error message
> is different than above]
>
> -------------
> params.c:OpenConfFile() - Unable to open configuration file
> "etc/smb.conf": No such file or directory
> Can't load etc/smb.conf - run testparm to debug it
> Added interface ip=127.0.0.1  bcast=127.255.255.255  nmask=255.0.0.0
> session request to ASUS failed
> session request to *SMBSERVER failed
>
> -------------
>
> So I rename  etc/smb.good  to  etc/smb.conf , containing   [global]   and
> on the next line   encrypt passwords = yes
>
> and try again with  smbclient -L asus
>
> This time it skips the stuff about no smb.conf, but still the session
> requests fail.
>
> > > (Connection refused)
> > > Connection to asus failed
> >
> > This is probably an authentication problem, perhaps
> > encrypted password.  Do the same command again with
> > the -d3 parameter to get debugging info.
> >
> > If the problem is occuring because win98 wants an encrypted
> > password (which is likely), you have two options.  Turn off
> > that feature on win98 or tell smbclient to use encryption.
>
> Now I've set the sharing on the Windows 98 machine so that drive E: is
> shared read-only, no passwords.
>
> Same result, the session requests fail.
>
> Now, on the Windows 98 machine, under Network Properties, I go to the
> screen for Properties of the TCP/IP protocol which is bound to the
> Ethernet card.
> I click the tab regarding Bindings. I check the box called "File and
> printer sharing for Microsoft Networks".
> The dialog says I have to reboot to make that effective, so I will save
> this message and hope it's still there after the reboot.
>
> ===========
>
> OK, the message is still here to be edited in my Windows e-mail program
> on machine   asus .
>
> Now, when I issue the command
> smbclient -L asus   on machine 'other',
> the response is
> Added interface ip=127.0.0.1  bcast=127.255.255.255  nmask=255.0.0.0
> Password:
> [at this prompt I press the  Enter  key]
>
> And then the response is
>
> Sharename     Type    Comment
> ------------- -----   -----------
> E   Disk
> FPROT                 Disk
> IPC$                  IPC             Remote Inter Process Communication
>
> Server                        Comment
> ----------            -----------
> ASUS
>
> Workgroup                     Master
> ------------                  --------
> WORKGROUP                     ASUS
>
>
> And then when I say
>
> smbclient \\\\asus\\E
>
> I soon can get to a prompt that looks like
>
> smb: \>
>
> and if I say
>
> help  or  ?
>
> it gives a list of commands, looks kind of like the ones in an  ftp
> program.
>
> If I say   ls
>
> it shows the files in the Windows computer's  E:\
>
> This message is long enough, so will report more later.
>
> Many thanks, Steven.
>
> Sheldon
>
>
>
>
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