Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Real easy book to get SAMBA up and running. You have to have some knowledge of Linux to begin with, but after reading this book, I was able to replace two NT file servers with a Linux box. This book shows pretty much everything you can do with SAMBA, tells what SAMBA cannot do, and what SAMBA has in the future.

No one is going to teach themselves Samba in 24 hours. So the title lies. On the other hand you can learn enough Samba to set up a file system that Windows 95 can read in a day. You can set up a printer (which also requires knowledge of UNIX System administration) in a couple of days. The issue of encrypted passwords is harder. Despite the book's less than clear discussion of the issue if you pay attention you will succeed at this task.

The book is poorly written and organized but it is indispensible especially on the topic of setting up Samba so that NT (which has encrypted passwords) can use Samba drives.

I'd rate the book 5 stars on content and 1 stars on presentation of content. The average is 3 stars.

The book promises to teach Samba in 24 hours "when you only have time for the answers". Well, I spent more than 24 hours trying to make Samba work and this book did not help. The book never comes to the point and never gives a solution on the spot. While overview is OK, the reference is bad. I would still recommend this book if you actually have time reading around 400 pages. Look for something else if you need Samba running by the end of the week.

This book clearly explains how to setup Samba and use it as file/printer server. If only I had this book when I setup our Linux Server it would have saved me some trouble of reading the HOW-Tos and other documents that comes with the program.

It clearly explains not only how to set it up but also how Samba works. I'm only in Chapter 7 right now but I already understood a lot of things which was not clear before. I'm going thru the whole book and see how I can improve the samba setup that I did.

This book is for those who wants to replace their NT servers but loaths to replace their Windows desktops. Now, you can setup a Linux box with Samba, replace your NT server and the only thing that users will notice is that there's no more downtime.

Carter has written a readable book that covers Samba installation, step by step, while explaining the netbios and SMB protocols along the way. Each chapter has a "Q&A" session highlighting common questions and providing answers.

Most people will install Samba (including me), get it talking to Windows clients and then move on to something else. Carter continues, and even touches on getting Macs connected to Samba. The author also briefly covers installing and configuring SSL (encryption).

For individuals who don't have a lot of UNIX experience, I would say hands down, this is the best introductory book. This book is highly readable, aimed at the beginner.

This book is concise, easy to read, get-to-the-point, hands-on and current. The first six chapters are very easy to follow and do not contain excessive or irrelevant materials. I spent four hours (finished the first 6 chapters) and a Samba 2.0.3 is up-and-running.

A very few details are missing. In particular, chapter six does not say that you need to be "su" to run smbpasswd to initialize encrypted SMB passwords.

Overall, a great book for Samba starters!

This is an excellent book. I must admit that I was just a tad nervous when I first saw it as I usually try to check over Samba books before they are released to make sure they don't have any major errors. I didn't get a chance with this one so it was great to see that Gerald and Richard have got everything right, even some stuff that is wrong in the Samba docs (yes, we'll fix that eventually ...)

I particularly liked the clear explanation of security models in Samba, as I know that many users have problems with that, which is understandable as much of it is quite counter-intuitive.

John Blair's book was good, but is now a bit dated as so much has changed in Samba 2.0. It is great to now see a book that is up to date with the latest changes and that explains the inner workings of Samba so well.

Andrew Tridgell

The description of this book would be that it "offers all possible assistance short of any actual help".

I now have a great background as to why Samba Exists, why it is called Samba and a whole wealth of other trivial things.

The Samba Parameters are explained, but it is not made clear why one would use most of them and when.

I bought the book when I was trying to hook a Samba server between Linux and WinXP. WinXP seems to have been an afterthought in this book as it is included in some parts but not in others, but mostly it is not mentioned in any useful context.

The section on debugging is probably the best, and most needed if you try to install Samba according to this book, but then I already got a copy of that chapter free from a link on the Samba website.

My copy of this book is currently gathering dust on the floor and I am using FTP to transfer files.

Not recommended for Samba beginners, for whom I guess it was intended...

Covers perfectly the Samba installation from the firsts steps, but also the protocol and distributed architecture issues.
Perhaps is one of the best guides to understand the puzzle about wins, browsing, NetBEUI, NetBIOS and the smb.

With an installation about several hundreds NT workstations, and many thousands users, this book help us for the daily maintenance.

The online Samba documentation is too complete and expansive to be read and comprehended in a single sitting. This book does an excellent job of introducing the information in the order you need to know it, starting with high-level overviews of the concepts and the details later.

The "24 Hours" is a bit of an exageration, though. It only took me one hour to read the first 5 chapters - enough information for me to get a server up and running.