RE: Networking when Linux is client instead of server

["Sharp, Lee" <Lee@PeakUSA.com>]

>One of the assumptions in RedHat is that the Linux box will be the
>server when coexisting with NT or Windows.  But in fact you could have
>a situation where a Linux user wants to mount shares from coworkers
>who are using windows (or perhaps from a Samba server) or get the
>messages sent by the box handling an SMB printer.

   I have successfully got a Inde box to print to an NT server.  You
have to fiddle with NT a bit, and turn on LPR printing.  It is on by
default in 3.51, but off in 4.0.  But it does work out of the box
already.  Shares, on the other had, I have yet to try.

>I have looked at Tksmb and it is really a wonderful application
>allowing very easy exploration of an SMB network and mounting of
>shares.  Its only drawback is that its install is not very smart and
>for instance you have to use an Install script who will ask what
>kernel version and put it in a config file because smbmount requires
>different arguments depending on if you are running 2.0 or 2.2.
>Needless to say I think it would be much better to parse the output of
>"uname -r", to detect the presence of a config and only file if
>lacking ask for SMB parameters, to deduce paramters like netmask from
>the output of ifconfig and to add /sbin and /usr/sbin to the path in
>case an smbmount fails due to command not found.  Finally it allows
>mounting shares but not unmounting.  Anyone willing to fix it (it uses
>TCL and Expect)

   This would also be a problem for people patching the kernel.  We
would install it in the distribution.  Then they would up to 2.2, and it
would break.  I don't think we should until the distribution is 2.2 out
of the box.
>
>Another application I am interested on is Linpopup for people having
>cowokers using windows or servers sending them short and urgent
>messages.

   This would be VERY nice.  It combined with the new stuff from
www.vmware.com means a network admin could run Inde full time, and only
bring up an "NT shell" as needed. :-)

>Finally I have fixed the dhcpcd program for being able to work on
>Token Ring (a trivial fix just replacing "if (hwaddr_type !=
>ETHERNET)" by "if (hwaddr_type != ETHERNET && hwaddr_type !=
>IEEE_802_4)" in two places along with the error message folowing.
>However when I tried I found the accompanying scripts were not very
>good: for one part Token Ring cards are slow to intialize and the
>waiting time was too short in RedHat scripts for all the fuss taking
>place and for another part Windows was far faster in starting so I
>think it does not ask for a new address if lease time has not expired
>while the redhat scripts do it systematically.  These scripts need
>fixing.  Is anyone else in a DHCPed network and willing to help with
>this?

   I could bring up DHCP here for testing purposes.  I could then give
you root on a box, and tell you what happens...  Nothing else on my
network is DHCP, however.

>			Lee
>