Change the system description used by Samba

Sep 06, '02 08:48:58AM

Contributed by: timb

Jaguar has much improved Windows file sharing support, but one thing that bothered me was that it auto-filled the description to that of "Samba 2.2.3a� when browsing to the Mac from within My Network Places on my Windows box. I wished I could change this to something more descriptive. Well you can!

Open up the terminal and type

sudo pico /etc/smb.conf
Scroll down to the [global] section and add the line
server string = A nice description goes here
then hit control-X then "Y" (to save the file and exit Pico).

Next restart the system and BAM! "Samba 2.2.3a� should be replaced by whatever you put for the server string. You can also change the hostname of the box (and the name that shows up in parentheses in the Windows box) by changing your Rendezvous name in the sharing portion of the control panel.

[Editor's note: I haven't tried this, but you might not need to restart. Try simply disabling and re-enabling the "Windows sharing" in the Sharing prefs panel first. It might do the trick.]

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