If you're interested in Samba on OS X, read the rest of this article for step-by-step instructions. I wrote it to be as simple to follow as possible, as I had zero UNIX experience the first time I installed it. Please post any questions or comments regarding the installation/configuration process, and I'll try my best to address them.
If you have minimal UNIX experience, installing and configuring Samba can be a bit intimidating, to say the least. As a friend of mine said, "Samba configuration is definitely a black art!" However, using a web-based admin tool, and if your network is relatively simple and your needs basic, it's actually somewhat easy. Here are the steps involved.
- Download the Samba installation package from one of these URLs:
Samba #1
Samba #2
Samba #3
[NOTE: Please check the xamba website to make sure you're getting the latest version of the program; the above link was current at the time of this posting, and downloads version 2.0. There may be newer releases, so check first...]
- Decompress the downloaded file, and then launch the resulting Apple installer. Follow the instructions (click the lock and enter your admin password to start), and Samba and SWAT (see below) will install themselves.
- Once Samba has been installed, the fun begins - configuring it. The easiest way to configure Samba (for most non-UNIX-wizards) is through SWAT, an included web-based GUI configuration tool. SWAT starts a mini-web-server on your machine, running on port 901. Connect to this server in your browser with this URL: http://127.0.0.1:901. You should be presented with a login dialog box. It is very important that you set the username to root and enter your root password. You should see a screen with a control panel that looks like this:

- Click on the Globals button, and don't be intimidated by the resulting screen of settings! We're only going to change a few variables, which I'll refer to with BOLD CAPS in the following steps.
- It's preferable if you set the WORKGROUP variable in the Base Options to match your existing Windows workgroup name. It's not required, but I was told it eliminates one potential trouble spot.
- Set the pop-up menu item for SECURITY in the Security Options section to SHARE.
- Change the ENCRYPT PASSWORDS option to YES, in the same section. Later, we'll set up a Samba user that understands Windows encryption.
- If you want to restrict access to your Samba shares, you can enter a value in the HOSTS ALLOW variable. In my case, I have it set to "192.168.1.", so that any machine on my internal network can see the share, but nobody from outside would be able to do so.
- Once you've set everything, hit the COMMIT CHANGES button at the top of the screen, and click on the Password icon.
- We now need to have Samba create a user that will be able to 'speak' Windows encryption. Samba will not let you create a user that does not already exist locally, so you'll want to enter your OS X username on the first line in the "Server Password Management" section. You can then enter any password on the next line, and repeat it on the third line. Click on Add New User when you're done. You should see a small message that reads "Added user username" in the middle of the screen.
- We have now configured the server, and established a user, but there's nothing yet to share. So click on the Shares navigation button.
- Type a new share name into the input box, and click on the Create Share button. The name you give the share is the folder name (inside your machine name) that Windows users will see when they connect to your OS X box.
- In the PATH variable, enter the path to the item you'd like to share. In my case, it's a downloads folder in my user directory, so I entered "/Users/robg/Documents/downloads".
- In the security section, make sure the guest account is disabled by setting GUEST OK to "no." Unless, of course, you wish to allow guest access.
- Once you have your share set the way you want it, click the Commit Changes button.
These steps should work to get you up and running with Samba on OS X. Please let me know if you have any problems with the steps as described here. There's also a MacNN Samba forum with tons of detail, and of course, the Samba web site.
Thanks to Derk-Jan Hartmann for compiling the application, and writing the first how-to that got me started, and to my UNIX-wizard friends for further debugging help.

