Samba Documentation

Documentation

The documentation (and in particular the man pages) given on this web page are taken from the latest development version of Samba. If you are using an earlier version of Samba then you may find some differences.

Documentation

Samba man pages. You can also download the tarball of the daily docs build which includes the HTML and PDF versions of both the Samba3-HOWTO and Samba3-ByExample.
Using Samba, 2ed, O'Reilly & Associates (Feb. 2003). (Jan 2007: The 3rd edition has been released and will be available online soon).
The Unofficial Samba HOWTO, by David Lechnyr
PDF version of the Troubleshooting Techniques chapter from the second edition of Sam's Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours (Dec. 2001)
Slide presentations by Samba Team members
Introduction to Samba 3.0 by Motonobu Takahashi (written in Japanese).
Understanding the Network Neighborhood, by team member Chris Hertel. This article appeared in the May 2001 issue of Linux Magazine.
Implementing CIFS; an on-line book describing the workings and implementation of the CIFS protocol suite.
Samba 2.0.x Troubleshooting guide from Paul Green
How to use SWAT with SSL security (updated for OpenSSL)
Ten Years of Samba
Samba Licensing (GNU GPL)
Samba Authenticated Gateway HOWTO

Older (but hopefully still valid) misc docs

Translations

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome to Samba documentation. Like everything else concerning Samba, these docs are maintained by members of the Samba community, and any help is much appreciated. Contributions can be simple typo corrections or a write up of new or previously undocumented features.

The documentation is located in the docs-xml directory in each release branch. Please see the Samba Wiki for information about the release branches and a short introduction into git.

Documentation "patches" can be reported through bugzilla. From the bugzilla home page, select 'Enter a new bug report,' choose the appropriate Samba branch, and finally, on the bug report form, specify 'Docs' in the component menu. Don't forget to attach your documentation fixes against the Docbook XML source files (not the generated man pages).

Samba Books

Using Samba has been updated to cover recent Samba 3.0 features and expanded to address more topics. The online version is not yet available in the Samba releases. However, you can read a sample chapter and purchase hard copies from O'Reilly.

The current Samba-3 release version of the Samba3-HOWTO is available in PDF and HTML formats. Hard copy of this document be purchased from Amazon.com (title: The Official Samba-3 HOWTO and Reference Guide, Second Edition).

The current Samba-3 release version of the Samba3-ByExample may be found here in PDF and HTML formats. Hard copy (which includes a CDROM with all Example files) may purchased from Amazon.com (title: Samba-3 by Example, Second Edition).

Team member Chris Hertel has written a book titled Implementing CIFS, which explores the workings and quirks of the SMB/CIFS protocol suite. It is aimed at network managers, security analysts, and SMB/CIFS implementors. In the spirit of Open Source, the entire content of the book is available online!

More Samba Books on the Samba Books page.