I have three Ubuntu boxes up and running right now. One is an x86 running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, the other two boxes are Sun Ultra 10's running 7.10 Gutsy for Sparc64.

On the X86 box the Samba is up, it can see all XP shares and communicate with them. On both of the UltraSparc boxes none of the XP or Mac shares show.

I have gone round and round with the smb.conf files for a day and a half.
I don't know where to start looking. I was comparing the smb.conf files from the box that worked to the two that don't, and I can tell they're a little different.

I have stopped looking at the box that is working and now I'm trying to figure out what's going on in the two that aren't.

Here's what I know...

The XP clients can see the Samba shares on ALL the servers - but they can only communicate with (read and write to) the x86 box running 8.10 - No matter what I try they won't hook up to the sparcs - even though they do list them in "Network Neigborhood" as available shares. Whenever you try to connect to one you fall into an endless circle of authentication windows that just keep coming up no matter what you put in.

The x86 can see ALL of the XP clients - the Sparcs can only see each other and nothing else. They can't see the other server or any of the clients. (If anyone knows about the default addressing on Sun hardware - this is one suspicion)

When you combine the different architecture, Samba versions and everything else - I'm a little out of my league when it comes to where to start looking. I could really use some help.. Thanks..

mwx

Posting here must be therapeutic for some reason - because moments after I did, I was able to figure out the problem between the two boxes that didn't work and the one that did...

My first problem was blaming Samba for the error. My second was blaming XP for the error. My third problem was assuming that the default settings in Ubuntu 8.04 were identical to the default settings of Ubuntu 7.10 for Sparc. My forth problem was blaming the boxes for being different from one another. My fifth problem - and the ultimate solution - was that I hadn't paid enough attention to ownership and permissions when I set up the shares in the fist place.

You can tell Samba everything you want it to do and it will try to do it - but if you don't set the correct permissions on directories you create it doesn't matter. Samba is not going to override root level permissions for directories you create... It took me a while to learn it..

Thank you LQ community - for giving me a place to think out loud and figure things out.