Windows Shared Folders

[webdude]

How do I see the shared folders on my other computers that are running Windows XP? I don't want to share any folders, etc on my linux box but I want to grab some data from the XP box.

Cheers.

[pparks1]

You need to mount your shared folder, or use konquerer (just one option) inside of X windows

mounting from a command line
mkdir /mnt/windowsshare

mount.cifs //name_of_XP_box/share /mnt/windowsshare -o username=name_of_nt_user_acccount

cd /mnt/windowsshare.....you should see your data


From inside of X windows;

This is just one way. Open up konquerer web browser. In the address field type in smb://name_of_XP_box/share. It will prompt you for username and password from an XP account with access. You should now connect and can drag and drop files.

[webdude]

Thanks pparks1 but that didn't work. I think I have a configuration problem somewhere.

My nework is behind a rounter. My public IP address is assigned to the router and all the boxes behind it are in the 192.168.1.X range.

When I run smbclient -L name_of_XP_box I get the following message:

timeout connecting to 70.26.224.204:445
Error connecting to 70.26.224.204 (Connection refused)
Connection to winxpwork failed
[webdude@bigdogpc ~]$

Why is my external ip address showing up?

Cheers.

[pparks1]

webdude,

When you run smbclient, why is your name_of_XP_box resolving to 70.26.224.204? Is this your outside IP address? Did you put that into your /etc/hosts file? If so, you need to remove that.

You should be hitting the 192.168.1.x address from your linux box when you type ping name_of_xp_box.

As a test, go to your WindowsXP machine and run ipconfig. Then, from your linux box use the smbclient command with the IP instead. Also, try the mount command with the IP and it's probably working.

I suspect you put the external ip in the /etc/hosts file.

[webdude]

pparks1,

You are right. My hosts file has my external IP address. I changed the IP address to be the 192.168.1.x one. I restarted the computer but it still doesn't work. I think I still have a config problem. Here is my latest investigation:

When I run smbclient -L name_of_XP_box I get the following message:

timeout connecting to 70.26.224.204:445
Error connecting to 70.26.224.204 (Connection refused)
Connection to winxpwork failed
[webdude@bigdogpc ~]$

Here is the interesting part. When I run the command:

smbclient -I 192.168.1.10 -L name_of_XP_box

everything works correctly. How does smbclient determine the ip address of the host machine? If it does a DNS query of my domain then I've got a problem because it will always be my external addrss. If it looks into /etc/hosts then it should be okay.

Cheers.

[pparks1]

You can check the /etc/nsswitch.conf file. Scroll down to the line that begins with hosts. It should read

hosts : files dns

This means that the system will ALWAYS look at files first (/etc/hosts) to determine a machine name rather than DNS. So, with that setting (which is the default), your /etc/hosts files ALWAYS overrides DNS (or is always used first).

When you change /etc/hosts, it's not necessary to reboot the linux computer.

Let's say your XP box is called Panther. Your /etc/hosts file would read like this;
192.168.1.3 panther.domain.com panther

Therefore, you should be able to go to a command line (on linux) and type ping panther and it should respond with 192.168.1.3. Optionally, you could also ping the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of panther.domain.com and it should also respond with the 192.168.1.3 address.


As far as DNS goes, this really shouldn't need to go out to DNS ever. For example, let's say I have registered a domain of myname.com. Well, that name is associated with my outside IP address which is currently held by my router. However, the machines on my internal network have names likes panther.anotherdomain.com, and windy.anotherdomain.com, and airbag.anotherdomain.com. Therefore, there should NEVER be any confusion as to which is which. Your external domain name SHOULD NOT be the same as an internal machine name. Make sense?

[webdude]

pparks1,

That is it! I made a terrible configuration error when I installed FC5. Being a newbie I filled in the network screen with my dyndns domain. This was a BAD move. Using your reply and the new found knowledge, I ran system-config-network applet and removed all the references to mydomain.com which is external. After that everything worked out great!

Thank you so much for your help.

Cheers,
webdude.

[pparks1]

webdude,

Thanks for letting me know that you have things working. That's the great thing about this forum, you will almost always find somebody willing to help you out with your problems.

I'm sure others have done what you did in the past and will continue to do so in the future. And hopefully if they do they will find this thread and figure out what happened.