How To Install and Configure Samba Server In RHEL 7/8 and CentOS 7/8
Samba is an open-source software suite that runs on Unix/Linux based platforms but is able to communicate with Windows clients like a native application. So Samba is able to provide this service by employing the Common Internet File System (CIFS).
At the heart of this CIFS is the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. Samba does this by performing these 4 key things –
File & print services
Authentication and Authorization
Name resolution
Service announcement (browsing)
Samba can be run on many different platforms including Linux, Unix, OpenVMS and operating systems other than Windows and allows the user to interact with a Windows client or server natively. It can basically be described as the Standard Windows interoperability suite of programs for Linux and Unix.
There are five basic tasks that can be accomplished using Samba.
We can share a Linux drive with Windows machines.
We can access an SMB share with Linux machines.
We can share a Linux printer with Windows machines.
We can share a Windows printer with Linux machines.
We can set up a domain controller on a Unix/Linux server and integrate Windows clients to the Domain controller.