Samba: smbclient

Connecting to a remote PC is something a must in passing or transfering files. An o/s platform other than Windows, for example, UNIX and Linux, need a protocol to connect to windows. The word samba comes in place for such doings. Samba uses the TCP/IP protocol that is installed and 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.
 
Here is few methods to be achieve on making a samba connection.
Here is samba connection with smbclient. A ftp way of remote shared folders.

smbclient -L <ip no> -U username -pwd password

This will show the ip address info via samba. I got something like this.

[root@localhost ahmyi]# smbclient -L 10.5.10.200 -U Administrator

Enter Administrator's password:

Domain=[LNA] OS=[Windows 7 Ultimate 7600] Server=[Windows 7 Ultimate 6.1]

    Sharename       Type      Comment
    ---------       ----      -------
    IPC$            IPC       Remote IPC
    print$          Disk      Printer Drivers
    downloads       Disk     
    LJ3005          Printer   LJ3005
    ADMIN$          Disk      Remote Admin
    C$              Disk      Default share


    Server               Comment
    ---------            -------


    Workgroup            Master
    ---------            -------

The option L tells the samba to just list what is shared and U for user. As you can see, windows has this one thing that I dislike. An open shared for each partition. Easy for people to penetrate using brute force. Next, after viewing the clients share files. Let us connect to it. Here is the next command.

smbclient \\\\<ip address>\\<folder> -U username

The \ doubles up if you notice. Normally we would just do \\<ip address>\<folder>

This is my output from terminal.

[root@localhost ahmyi]# smbclient \\\\10.5.10.200\\c$ -U Administrator

Enter Administrator's password:

Domain=[LNA] OS=[Windows 7 Ultimate 7600] Server=[Windows 7 Ultimate 6.1]

smb: \>

Here you can get put files as you wish. To get files use command get. While to put use put. Let me view the directory first by using command dir.

smb: \> dir
  .                                   D        0  Mon Apr 26 16:37:26 2010
  ..                                  D        0  Mon Apr 26 16:37:26 2010
  .DS_Store                          AHSR  15364  Sun Feb 21 14:44:04 2010
  AUTOEXEC.BAT                       AHSR      0  Mon Apr 26  20:21:48 2010
  boot.ini                           AHSR    211  Mon Apr 26  15:44:51 2010
  CONFIG.SYS                         AHSR      0  Mon Apr 26  20:21:48 2010

  userdata                            D        0  Mon Apr 26 16:40:44 2010
  xampp                               D        0  Mon Apr 26 16:40:46 2010

        38103 blocks of size 2097152. 11404 blocks available

smb: \>

Lets copy boot.ini and copy the folder userdata. First of all create a folder on your home. I created samba. This is where I will transfer all the files into.

Do as below.

smb: \> lcd samba
smb: \> get boot.ini
getting file \boot.ini of size 211 as boot.ini (103.0 KiloBytes/sec) (average 103.0 KiloBytes/sec)
smb: \>

So now in your home/samba folder exists the file you just get. Next lets do some modification towards the file and put it back. Here is what's inside the boot.ini file.

Mod it and put it back. Here put is use.

smb: \> put boot.ini
putting file boot.ini as \boot.ini (103.0 kb/s) (average 103.0 kb/s)
smb: \>

Now copying the whole folder userdata.

smb: \> tarmode
tarmode is now full, system, hidden, noreset, verbose
smb: \> recurse
smb: \> prompt
smb: \> mget userdata
getting file \userdata\user1.dat of size 820 as user1.dat (61.6 KiloBytes/sec) (average 61.6 KiloBytes/sec)
getting file \userdata\userdata.exe of size 25145632 as userdata.exe (11405.6 KiloBytes/sec) (average 11337.5 KiloBytes/sec)
getting file \userdata\users.dat of size 20 as users.dat (19.5 KiloBytes/sec) (average 11332.3 KiloBytes/sec)
smb: \>

Here is the explaination.

recurse - all the inside directory
prompt - no need to type y everytime.
mget - get all

To put do the same but use mput. Oh. If you can't use smbclient try download from know repos using yum install samba-client samba samba-common.
If you want to easily connect with gui just do as below. Type in smb://<no. ip>