Samba can operate without any security or it can utilize any of a variety of security mechanisms integrated with Linux and Windows. This section presents the major options, but does not delve into all the details, as this is beyond the scope of this article. In general, a home or small business network may operate without any security. Security can be added later if necessary.

There are different ways to secure access to Samba resources. The first is with no security, so anyone can access resources. The second is to use account names. The third is to use names and passwords. In addition, the names and passwords can be maintained by Samba, Samba can use Linux names and passwords, or names and passwords from a Windows NT domain controller. It can also act as a Windows NT domain controller.

Resources can be managed at the user, share, server, or domain level. For small networks, the share level is often sufficient. In this case the shares have their own access passwords. User level management tends to be the easiest to manage.

What Else?
There are many other features within Samba not covered in this article. For example, the NETLOGON support allows scripts to be executed on clients when they log onto the server to access resources. This is a necessary feature for larger networks, but it is often unused on smaller ones.

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