Chapter 6

FTP, File and Print

Server
A System Administration
Perspective

Network and System Administration 1

 What is FTP
• FTP is short for File Transfer Protocol.
• It is used to transfer files between an FTP server
and another computer.
• FTP also tends to be faster than other contemporary
methods of transferring files because it was
designed to do so.
• Two roles during file transfer:
 FTP Server: Hosts the service
 FTP Client: uploads/downloads files to/from FTP Server
• FTP support Automatic Resume.

Network and System Administration 2

 How to connect to FTP Server
• Two approaches exist to connect to FTP Server:
 The first is to make it so anyone can log in anonymously,
otherwise known as anonymous FTP, or
 Example: ftp://movies.ambou.edu.et
 Assign user names and passwords to people that they
must use to log in to the server.
 Example: ftp://username:password@movies.ambou.edu.et
 It is also possible to use FTP client that is designed
specifically to connect to FTP servers.
 These types of software are generally the best as they have been
streamlined for speed and support a lot of the advanced features
like automatic resume. 
 Example: FileZilla, Fire FTP, WinSCP
Network and System
3
Administration
 Samba: An Introduction
• The main essence of computer network is to share
information and resource.
• File is among the resource users can share on the
network.
 File sharing should be transparent to heterogeneity in
platforms in the network
 Windows, Unix, Mac, …..
• Domain based windows network doesn’t
communicate with Linux/Mac machines.
•

Network and System

4
Administration
 Samba…
• Samba is an Open Source/Free Software suite that
provides seamless file and print services to SMB/CIFS
clients.
 Samba is freely available, unlike other SMB/CIFS
implementations, and allows for interoperability between
Linux/Unix servers and Windows-based clients
 Samba uses the TCP/IP protocol that is installed on the host
server.
 When correctly configured, it allows that host to interact
with a Microsoft Windows client or server as if it is a
Windows file and print server.
 It uses SMB/CIFS (Server Message Block/Common Internet
File System) protocol.
Network and System
5
Administration
 What Samba Does
• Samba implement the four basic modern-day CIFS
services.
 File & print services
 Authentication and Authorization
 Name resolution
 Service announcement (browsing)

Network and System

6
Administration
 What Samba….
• File and print services are the cornerstone of the
CIFS suite.
 File sharing, Print Sharing
• It also handles share mode and user mode
authentication and authorization.
 One can protect shared file and print services by
requiring passwords.
 In share mode, password can be assigned to a shared directory
or printer.
  With user mode authentication, each user has their own
username and password.

Network and System

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Administration
 What Samba….
• Name resolution takes two forms: broadcast and
point-to-point.
 In broadcast, a client looking for a service will call out with
the service name and wait for the machine with that name to
answer with an IP address.
 In point-to-point which uses NBNS (NetBios Name Service),
services will keep their name and associated IP Address.
 The clients send their NetBIOS names & IP addresses to the NBNS
server
• Browsing maintains browsable list of services (file and
print shares) offered by the computers on a network.

Network and System

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Administration
 What Samba….
• Service announcement (browsing) is handled by
Local Master Browser (LMB).
 The LMBs job is to keep a list of available services
 LMB is voted by the participating PCs in the LAN.
 In addition to LMBs, there are Domain Master Browsers
(DMBs).
 DMBs coordinate browse lists across NT Domains, even on
routed networks

Network and System

9
Administration
 Samba Utilities
• Samba comes with a variety of utilities. The most
commonly used are:
 smbclient
 A simple SMB client, with an interface similar to that of the FTP
utility.
 It can be used from a Unix system to connect to a remote SMB share,
transfer files, and send files to remote print shares (printers).
 nmblookup
 It can be used to find NetBIOS names on a network, lookup their IP
addresses, and query a remote machine for the list of names the
machine believes it ownes.
 swat
 The Samba Web Administration Tool. Swat allows you to configure
Samba remotely, using a web browser.
Network and System
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Administration