Fedora can't see Windows PC

[chrisflynn]

Have just installed Fedora Core 2 Test 3 and applied all the updates via yum. My home network has 3 other computers - one Windows XP Home, and two Windows 2K. My Fedora box cannot see the other computers. When I go from Computer to Network, the icon for Windows Network is display. Double-clicking shows no items. I have tried enabling SMB from the Authentication menu and have set the workgroup to WORKGROUP, which my Windows boxes use. All to no avail.

I am new to Fedora & would appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction. Thanks.

[Jman]

Sounds like you're trying out the smb functionality of the file manager but not seeing anything. If you're using Gnome, the default environment, you would get there by Main Menu > Network Servers.

Open a terminal window (Main Menu > System Tools > Terminal) and try running findsmb This might find your network.

[chrisflynn]

Yes, I am using Gnome and trying out SMB functionality. Here's the results:

*=DMB
+=LMB
IP ADDR NETBIOS NAME WORKGROUP/OS/VERSION
---------------------------------------------------------------------

It looks to me like my network isn't there for some reason. (I do have access to the internet via my router. )

[chrisflynn]

Update: I went to System Setting to Security Level and checked the box saying eth0 is a "trusted device". Now, findsmb gives:

*=DMB
+=LMB
IP ADDR NETBIOS NAME WORKGROUP/OS/VERSION
---------------------------------------------------------------------
192.168.0.101 TRAKKEN [TRAKKEN] [Windows 5.1] [Windows 2000 LAN Manager]
192.168.0.101 TRAKKEN [TRAKKEN] [Windows 5.1] [Windows 2000 LAN Manager]
192.168.0.102 GALLIFREY [WORKGROUP] [Windows 5.0] [Windows 2000 LAN Manager]
192.168.0.103 FAMILYROOM +[FAMILYROOM] [Windows 5.0] [Windows 2000 LAN Manager]
192.168.0.103 FAMILYROOM +[FAMILYROOM] [Windows 5.0] [Windows 2000 LAN Manager]

This is progress. There are still no icons in the Gnome file manager for my computers.

[Jman]

Note that WORKGROUP only has one machine, GALLIFREY, by the look of this.

Try running smbclient -L GALLIFREY to list the shares of that machine.

This probably won't help the nautilus filemanager, but I have had success adding hosts to the /etc/samba/lmhosts file. Format is ip number whitespace name. This is not the ideal solution to a dynamic DHCP environment, though.

I never was sure what made nautilus work for me.

For some reason getting Samba to find Windows workgroup browers to get the ip is difficult.

[chrisflynn]

findsmb is giving unexpected results. I doubled-checked each Windows box to make sure they belonged to WORKGROUP. They do and they talk to each other just fine. Nautilus' Connect to Server works when given the complete path to the shared folder smb://gallifrey/xxxx. This puts an smb icon on the desktop & I can then browse the shared folder's contents.

As an aside, I installed Mepis linux on another box and coonected to the network via the same port that the Fedora box uses (not at the same time). Mepis uses a KDE program SMB4K (I think). It correctly displays icons for the computers on the network & the shared folders therein.

[chrisflynn]

Fedora Core 2 Release works fine. File manager displays icons of the Windows computers & it can access shared folders. Did anything change from FC2T3 to the release version? Maybe it was something on my end?

[Roody]

I'm having this issue myself after installing FC2 yesterday. I have 3 Windows machines (2 WinXP Pro, 1 Win XP Home) and my linux box. I see the Network Icon, but nothing is inside. :(

[dreamcatalyst]

I have the same problem. Using the Gnome network browser I can sometimes mount a windows share with File > Connect to Server but when i try to duplicate it a second time it doesn't work saying the target doesn't exisit or it says authentication failed without even asking to authenticate even if no authentication has been done before. I know Gnome and smb have had trouble so i tried using smbclient and mount -t smb with no avail either.

I also have problems with two Fedora Core 2 systems connecting to eachother. The smb.conf are the same except for the netbios name. I connected once with no problem using "mount -t smbfs ...", the next time I tried the system hangs and I have to hit the restart button. Every susequent attempt has resulted in the same hangs.

[chrisflynn]

SMB browsing worked fine for me with FC2 just one time. That was right after it was installed. It has never worked properly since then. I can get to box on the network if I log onto it directly.

[djf_jeff]

I have the same problem

findsmb work fine

smbclient work fine

But nothing to do with nautilus browsing...

[yeehi]

chrisflynn,

I cant see my windows xp box from fedora core 2 either.
I tried your trust eth0 but still nothing showed up.

I remember reading that some special ports might need to be opened for xp, but i am clueless.

[dreamcatalyst]

one broblem is that Gnome doesn't use samba code, it uses it's own code. The explains why nautilus doesn't work. But will it ever?

[dopeflish]

Yep again, same problem, I posted this under the topic of Network Servers Problem a few topics down. smbclient works fine, but Gnome Network Servers shows nothing. It did one time, but not anymore. My firewall on this machine is trusted.

DF

[May1950]

I had the same problem with FC2. My FC2 box could not see the other computers on my home network when I clicked on Windows Network. I spent hours trying to configure Samba without success and finally gave up. I went back and installed FC1 and the problem is gone. I didn't have to do any reconfiguring of Samba. Now when I click on the icon for Windows Network, I see all PCs on the network.

Regards,
Ron

[makalam]

Just couldn't get Samba and Nautilus work together. smbfind, smbstatus all work. Can connect to xp shares using smbclient, I mean samba is working just perfect. But nautilus would not show any samba network. Firewall is turned off for the last 6 days.

I erased all nameserver entries from /etc/resolv.conf and then open mainMenu->network server, and it worked. But that's really not a solution as without DNS internet stopped working (DSL with DHCP/Linksys). May be some of you hopefully will try it and let us know if you get the same weird result and hopefully gurus out there can provide a solution.

Thanks.

[Ned]

Update: I went to System Setting to Security Level and checked the box saying eth0 is a "trusted device".

If you do that you are effectively turning off your firewall by trusting all traffic in and out of that ethernet adaptor.

You need to open ports 137, 138, and 139 used by the NetBIOS service that windows and samba (smb) use to talk to eachother. Only open these ports for your windows machine on your internal lan that you wish to see

$ iptables -A INPUT -p ALL -i eth0 -s 192.168.0.1 --destination-port 137:139 -j ACCEPT

If you're unfamiliar with iptables, this will open traffic for all protocols (tcp, udp, icmp) to your local ethernet port 0 from ip 192.168.0.1 (your XP machine wanting to connect) on ports 137-139. Add additional lines for each ip address to be allowed to access or change to -s 192.168.0.0/24 which is the same as a 255.255.255.0 subnet mask to open up access from all IPs in the 192.168.0 range (or whatever private ip address range you're using on your lan).

Ned

[makalam]

Update on Samba and Nautilus:

I think the problem with Samba and Nautilus started when I changed hostname. I removed samba from add/remove. Then downloaded samba 3.0.5 from samba.org. Changed my hostname.

Tried to install with rpm -i but got a whole lot samba-common error. Installed it with rpm -U and installed just fine.

Nautilus and Samba worked like charm. I don't know but I think when you install samba it hard codes the *then* hostname somewhere.

[superbnerd]

one insecure way to fix this problem is to enable WINS support in samba and make sure the ports are open (I think they are 137 udp, tcp and 138 udp and 139tcp). worked for me.

[pmulgaonkar]

I have the same problem. However, when I edit the /etc/sysconfig/iptables file to add the -A INPUT -p ALL -i eth0 -s <ip address> --destination-port 137:139 -j ACCEPT, and then do a /etc/init.d/iptables restart, I get a syntax error on the line (--destination-port not recognized). I tried with --dport, same result.

Is there a particular place where the line needs to go? Turning off the firewall works fine (except it is obviously risky).

Help is much appreciated. This is the first Linux box I am trying to configure.
Thanks