Customer Reviews

Samba: Integrating Unix and Windows

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I do UNIX system administration for my company and I bought this book hoping it would help me offer UNIX printing services to our Windows 95/98 PCs. It was a waste of money. While this book is not terrible, neither is it for everyone. If you do not have a good knowledge of Microsoft networking concepts such as Master Browsers, this book will be as useless to you as it was to me. The explanations of Microsoft networking concepts so ineegral to Samba are very poor in this book. The author basically assumes that you know as much about Windows networking as he does. Example configs are poor and good luck trying to debug any problems you might have. If you don't know what a Domain Master Browser is, you would better off to do what I did and get the new O'Reilly and Associates book _Using Samba_ which does a much better job of explaining everything you need to know to make Samba work.

Samba in a cinch. You pick up this book and within an hour you can have Samba running. There is really nothing to it. John Blair is a member of the Samba team, so he REALLY knows his stuff. He's also a remarkably good technical writer.

All the details are here, and the index is great. If you need something that this book doesn't cover, then you're way beyond me!

Have to setup Samba in a hurry? Overnight this book. The day you get it, flip through it for 10 minutes. Update the SMB.CONF file a bit. You're done - inside an hour - no question.

If you want to get fancy, this book covers that too. I haven't yet seen anything that wasn't in this book. In fact, I've found stuff that was in this book that I couldn't find ANYWHERE else.

Excellent book. Great to learn Samba. Great reference to keep handy afterward. Truly excellent book!

A superb book that covers all aspects of samba Config. My only critisism is that it is somewhat out of date (latest Ver 2.05) but that is OK as the principles havent changed much. Combined with the info on the samba site this book is the bible of samba, a must have.

This book describes all the details of MS networking. From the protocol level to application level. A must have book on Windows Unix integration. But beware! This book is very technical

The intended audience for this book is the seasoned and open minded UNIX SA who has a smattering of understanding the Microsoft way of doing network based file sharing. The book dives right into detailed real world configurations that can be deployed right away. This book proudly sits in my library as one of the most utilitarian pieces of technical literature I own.

It is a very well organized book, usable as a reference. However, the lates version of Samba are not cover: a kind of "release notes" would be nice.

This book has everything you'll need to integrate Linux and Windows on a network. It has all of the information that you just can't find in FAQ's, HOWTO's, man pages, and online documents and tutorials. Many problems which had been frustrating me for months were solved in minutes just by referencing this book.

John Blair has managed to provide us with an in-depth tutorial on Windows networking protocols, a description of the Samba suite, a complete configuration guide and an excellent desktop reference, all in one book! An extremely well organized and clearly written text. Anyone who is using samba and hasn't picked up this book is really missing out!

This book makes it real easy to replace NT servers with Linux boxes and provide the same file and services. Very detailed explainations of every samba option available.

An excellent description of networking protocols, coupled with an in depth explanation of how Microsoft use (abuse??) them, makes this book a must have for anyone involved with networking Windows. The Samba/Unix info is a bonus.