Using Samba with EasyNet

[NovaCoder]

Ok now I've got EasyNet all setup on my A1200 with my wireless network card and want to take the next step....Samba!

The plan is to be able to access my PC's DVD drive from my humble Amiga...much better than cutting a hole in my Amiga case

Anyway I found this guide but it seems to be saying that I need Genesis where as EasyNet uses AimiTCP which is an older version of Genesis (I think).

So what are my chances getting Samba working with EasyNet & AmiTCP?


Or should I forget about Samba and use AmigaExplorer instead -> pros/cons?

Update: Actually it looks EasyNet has a built-in way of accessing Samba shared objects. So I guess all I need to do is install Samba on my PC and then start playing Simon the sorcerer 2?

[jPV]

Samba can be installed for older AmiTCP too, settings are pretty similar as well as features of the stacks.

But if you only want to access shares on other computers, then installing whole Samba is overkill. Samba is mainly needed on the server side.

You should use SMBFS for mounting shares from other computers instead. It's just one little shell command for Amiga and nothing else is required. Just correct options for it and the serving end. I guess EasyNet comes with it. Couple of notes for Amiga usage of smbfs: you need to add your PC's address and name to amitcp:db/hosts file and then add stack before running smbfs ("stack 32768", for example).

Samba is the default protocol for file sharing in Windows, so you don't need to install anything if you're using Windows on your PC. Just define some shares there. Also most Linux distros come with Samba pre installed.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by jPV

Samba can be installed for older AmiTCP too, settings are pretty similar as well as features of the stacks.

But if you only want to access shares on other computers, then installing whole Samba is overkill. Samba is mainly needed on the server side.

You should use SMBFS for mounting shares from other computers instead. It's just one little shell command for Amiga and nothing else is required. Just correct options for it and the serving end. I guess EasyNet comes with it. Couple of notes for Amiga usage of smbfs: you need to add your PC's address and name to amitcp:db/hosts file and then add stack before running smbfs ("stack 32768", for example).

Samba is the default protocol for file sharing in Windows, so you don't need to install anything if you're using Windows on your PC. Just define some shares there. Also most Linux distros come with Samba pre installed.

Yes I just want to access my PC's DVD drive and maybe the HD.

I never knew that Samba is the default protocol for file sharing in Windows...you really do learn something new every day (and then forget 3 things).

Thanks for the info

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Yes I just want to access my PC's DVD drive and maybe the HD.

I never knew that Samba is the default protocol for file sharing in Windows...you really do learn something new every day (and then forget 3 things).

Thanks for the info

You don't need to do anything!

Easynet already has the ability to be able to access shared resources, it's exactly how my Miggy connects to a drive on my PC at startup. I cannot look at it tonight, but if you bear with me until tomorrow night, just a bit later than now, I will reveal all.

Genesis isn't bad, but overly complicated, Samba is just a plain mess.

All in my humble opinion of course.

Paul

[amigakit.com]

If you want to access your PC's hard disks there is no need to install anything other than EasyNet

Goto the Host Manager, select the PC in the hosts list and click the Connect to.. button

Your PC's shares will appear as an icon on the Workbench (On your PC don't forget to enable file sharing access for the Amiga):

[Loedown]

Thankyou Matthew, saved me the trouble of finding it tomorrow.

Paul

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by amigakit.com

If you want to access your PC's hard disks there is no need to install anything other than EasyNet

Goto the Host Manager, select the PC in the hosts list and click the Connect to.. button

Your PC's shares will appear as an icon on the Workbench (On your PC don't forget to enable file sharing access for the Amiga):

Cool, I always like the easy option

I'll have to have a look at enabling file sharing on my XP machine and then let you know how I get on.

[NovaCoder]

Hiya,

I finally got around to trying this last night (time poor!) and.......failed miserably

I'm running WinXP Professional, I tired to share a folder on my ‘C’ drive and I got a prompt saying the file sharing was disabled by default and did I want to run the networking wizard to enable it. So I ran the silly wizard and put it a name for my PC and a workgroup name, it then restarted and after hanging the first time (friggen XP!) it came back up with the directory showing as ‘shared’.

I then booted up the 1200 and entered my PC’s IP address in the host manager before clicking the ‘connect to’ button and entering my network information. I’m not sure about the user & password, is that the username password that I use to login to XP or should I just ignore it?

Anyway I couldn’t get it to connect to the XP’s shared directory and also couldn’t ping my PC from the host manager window which isn’t a good sign (maybe my PC’s firewall is blocking it?)

Has anyone got a step-by-step guide who's done this with EasyNet + XP Pro?

Thanks

[NovaCoder]

Update

As I suspected, my XP's firewall was blocking all access. I had to add my A1200's IP address as a trusted computer in XP and then it was game on.

I also found out that you do need to enter the username/password that you use to login to XP within EasyNet.

I'm having trouble browsing the contents of a CD but you can see the contents of normal HD shares without issue

The cdrom problem is bizzare actually because it correct mounts the CDROM share on my desktop (after a few mins anyway) and even reads the CDROM to get the correct Icon but when you open a window to browse the contents you cannot see anything (the drive space is correct shown in the window's title bar). What gives, has anyone got EasyNet to browse the contents of a CDROM using a share setup on a host PC? I'm trying this with my OS 3.9 CDROM so it should be Amiga compatible

[NovaCoder]

*bump*

So nobody has used EasyNet to connect to their PC's CDROM drive then?

[thomas]

I don't know why you don't see files, but I can tell you that "it should be Amiga compatible" is a wrong thought. SMB/CIFS is a *file* sharing protocol, not a *device* sharing one. Windows has to be able to read the CD. It then offers the directory structure to the network. Remote computers do *not* get direct access to the drive. So Amiga compatibility is only hindering correct work and Amiga attributes are completely lost on this way.

To keep compatibility you should make an ISO image of the CD and mount it using cdromemu.device or diskimage.device. If you store the ISO file on the Amiga you are even independant of the network connection and have highest possible speed.

[NovaCoder]

Hi Thomas,

Yes you are right, compatibility might be an issue.

I can't see why I shouldn't be able to see the Amiga CDROM's shared files when I can see a normal Amiga HD shared files on the same PC? I think it might be a bug in EasyNet because it is correctly reading the CDROM to load up the ICON.INFO...very strange?

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

*bump*

So nobody has used EasyNet to connect to their PC's CDROM drive then?

No, I use it only to connect to a shared directory, which it does just fine.

Paul

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Loedown

No, I use it only to connect to a shared directory, which it does just fine.

Paul

Hiya Paul,

Yep it also works for me ok with shared HD directories.

Can you do me a favour and give it a quick try with a shared CDROM drive (eg share the entire drive)?

I just want to see if it's an issue with my setup or just a weakness in EasyNet.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Hiya Paul,

Yep it also works for me ok with shared HD directories.

Can you do me a favour and give it a quick try with a shared CDROM drive (eg share the entire drive)?

I just want to see if it's an issue with my setup or just a weakness in EasyNet.

I will, just not tonight.

Paul

[NovaCoder]

Ok, thanks

[Loedown]

Greetings,
Shared my Pioneer DVD112 drive on the main PC, as I already have a directory shared here, I just added the drive letter ( Y )

In Easynet's Host's Manager, I added the drive letter Y, as above, set the network name, MUST BE IN CAPITOLS, in my case it's MSHOME, set the user as AMIGA, password as the same could read a DVD, but as soon as I tried to go into a lower directory, it came back as not a dos disk, but it read a CD just fine, even copied a file over and read the text, apart from the formatting, it was all good.

If you need any further help, just ask and yes, Windows Firewall is PERMANENTLY disabled on my machine, that's why I have a router and ADSL modem with firewalls.

I would use DOpus if I were you, it doesn't care about spaces in directories or alike, CLI / Shell does.

Paul

[NovaCoder]

That's interesting, thanks Paul. So it must be a problem with my XP machine/setup then. I'll also try DOpus to see if that helps.

Did you try with both an Amiga CDROM and a PC CDROM BTW? You might need to add the PC driver to read PC CDROM's but Amiga CDROMS *should* work ok without it (see Thomas's comments above).

It's good to know that it can work though, thanks again

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

That's interesting, thanks Paul. So it must be a problem with my XP machine/setup then. I'll also try DOpus to see if that helps.

Did you try with both an Amiga CDROM and a PC CDROM BTW? You might need to add the PC driver to read PC CDROM's but Amiga CDROMS *should* work ok without it (see Thomas's comments above).

It's good to know that it can work though, thanks again

It works regardless, I put in WIN95C and it read the disk just fine, even subdirectories and file transfers. I would suspect the Amiga problems may have been in regard to the DVD file structure.

Word of advice, the shared drive I use is (computername).(directory)

so an example, powerbox.amiga_backup:

Naturally I don't feel like typing this in, so I use an alias. Further to this whole deal, the Amiga names the shared directories as for instance, powerbox2: or powerbox3: to find out what it's named your share, just open Shell and type in info, there it will show you what is what.

Paul