Configuring File Server

This section describes how to perform the following operations:

• Configure the file server.
• View the current usage of shared resources.
• Refresh server statistics.
• Disable your file server.

To view the current status of your file server:

1. Go to Extensions > File Server > Status.
2. In the Current statistics section, view whether your file server is started or stopped. The statistics on the current connections to shared directories is provided in the table with the following columns:
   • Share, name of the shared resource.
   • Host, name of the remote host currently connected to the shared directory.
   • User, user name who is currently connected to the shared directory.

To configure the file server:

1. Go to Extensions > File Server > Status > Preferences.
2. To change the workgroup for your server on the Microsoft network, click in the Workgroup field and enter the name of a workgroup. If needed, edit the description in the Description field containing an optional description of your file server.
3. You can also configure the following security parameters for your Samba server:
   • Authentication mode. Select one of the following security modes:
     • Share - in this security mode, the user authenticates themselves separately for each share. The user sends a password along with each tree connection (share mount). Passwords are meant to be associated with each share, independent of the user.
     • User - this security mode is based on verifying the username and password. The server can either accept or reject the username and password combination. At this stage the server has no idea what share the client will eventually try to connect to, so it bases the accept/reject decision only on the username and password and the name of the client machine.
     • Server - in Server Security Mode, the Samba server receives the username and password from the client and sends a session setup request to the machine designated as the password server. If the password server is in user-level security and accepts the password, Samba accepts the client's connection. The client sends all passwords in encrypted form. This security mode requires the use of a password server (see Authentication server).
     • Domain - in Domain Security Mode, the Samba server has a domain security trust account (a machine account) and causes all authentication requests to be passed through to the domain controllers. In other words, domain security has basically the same concept as server security mode, with the exception that the Samba server becomes a member of a Windows NT domain. This means that the Samba server can participate in things such as trust relationships.
     • ADS - in this mode, the authentication procedure is performed through an Active Directory domain. Samba in this security mode can accept Kerberos tickets.
   • Authentication server. If you set the security mode to either Server, Domain, or ADS, you will need to specify the password server (or the authentication server). For user and share modes, the password server is not required.

     In this field, enter the NetBIOS name of the SMB server used as a password server, on which the Samba server will check the entered passwords. You can list multiple NetBIOS names separated with a space. This allows Samba to attempt a session setup request to each machine in the list in order until a server is contacted. This means that the next machine on the list is contacted only if the previous machine was unavailable.

     You must use only the NetBIOS name of the password server (not the IP address), and Samba must have a way of resolving the name to an IP address in order to attempt the connection.

     To create a local account for all users that access the Samba server and disable the password field, set this field to the asterisk character (*).

   • Encrypt password. Select Yes if you want to store passwords used to authenticate users in encrypted form or No if password encryption is not required.
   • Guest account. In this menu, select the system user whose rights will be granted to users logged on under the guest account. If you have no guest account on your server, select the no guest account option. If you need a guest account for anonymous users, it is advised that you select the nobody option.

     For details on the Samba security configuration options, please refer to the relevant Samba documentation.

To refresh data on the current connections to your file server:

1. Go to Extensions > File Server > Status.
2. Click the Refresh button. The list of current connections and file server status will be refreshed.

To disable your file server:

1. Go to Extensions > File Server > Status.
2. Click the Disable button.