[SGVLUG] stupid newbie questions

[Emerson, Tom]

> -----Original Message----- Of K. Zachary Abbott
> 
> Since there was no reference to my "old" name in the smb.conf file, 
> there was nothing there for me to change, but I think 
> changing the Hosts file under /etc did the trick.

Right.  As the man page stated:

> > -------------------------------
> > netbios name (G) [...] By default it is
> > the same as the first component of the host's DNS name. 

I suspect your smb.conf file does not have a "netbios name=" line (or it
begins with a "#", thus making it a comment) so Samba is using your
hostname variable when it advertises itself to other systems.

Linux/Unix systems are highly "network aware" -- networking for MS
windows systems was an add-on.  As such, the "fully qualified domain
name" or FQDN, is the host AND domain name as a single unit, represented
with "dots" betweeen the elements.  "the Internet" (with a capital I)
would have been a mess without this concept -- in fact, in the really
early days, the (single-tasked) computer assigned to be the web server
was commonly named just "www", hence the common "name" applied to
everyone's website...  (you didn't HAVE to call your machine "www", but
if you didn't, very few people would ever "find" you -- of course,
nowadays that might be a good thing...)

[in your response to Michael]

> I don't care about the GUI; I was simply stating that as a Windows 
> admin, I knew how to do this on a Windows box, and the change 
> in the one spot changes everything else.

In general, "/etc" is "the one spot" to change things on a Linux system
to control how it relates to the rest of the world.  At the end user
level, however, things get murky since it appears individual window
managers (kde, gnome, windowmaker, etc.) will have per-user
configuration areas in different places...

Of course, this change ONLY covers what the machine knows of itself --
if you have a DNS server ("bind", actually...) you may have to change
the datafiles for that server so that it advertises the new name
correctly.  If you're using a combination of bind and dhcp(d), then they
might actually use what you've configured on the workstation when
advertising to the rest of the network.  (which is inherently true of
NMB, or the network-naming component of SMB, as the workstation "tells"
the browse master what it's  own name is and the master then replicates
it to clients upon request)