Chapter 2. Compiling and installing Samba on a Unix host
Prev |  | Next

## Chapter 2. Compiling and installing Samba on a Unix host

## My client reports "cannot locate specified share name" or similar

This message indicates that your client CAN locate the specified server, which is a good start, but that it cannot find a service of the name you gave.

The first step is to check the exact name of the service you are trying to connect to (consult your system administrator). Assuming it exists and you specified it correctly (read your client's docs on how to specify a service name correctly), read on:

Many clients cannot accept or use service names longer than eight characters.
Many clients cannot accept or use service names containing spaces.
Some servers (not Samba though) are case sensitive with service names.
Some clients force service names into upper case.

## Why are my file's timestamps off by an hour, or by a few hours?

This is from Paul Eggert eggert@twinsun.com.

Most likely it's a problem with your time zone settings.

Internally, Samba maintains time in traditional Unix format, namely, the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Universal Time (or ``GMT''), not counting leap seconds.

On the server side, Samba uses the Unix TZ variable to convert internal timestamps to and from local time. So on the server side, there are two things to get right.

The Unix system clock must have the correct Universal time. Use the shell command "sh -c 'TZ=UTC0 date'" to check this.
The TZ environment variable must be set on the server before Samba is invoked. The details of this depend on the server OS, but typically you must edit a file whose name is /etc/TIMEZONE or /etc/default/init, or run the command `zic -l'.

TZ must have the correct value.

If possible, use geographical time zone settings (e.g. TZ='America/Los_Angeles' or perhaps TZ=':US/Pacific'). These are supported by most popular Unix OSes, are easier to get right, and are more accurate for historical timestamps. If your operating system has out-of-date tables, you should be able to update them from the public domain time zone tables at ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/.

If your system does not support geographical timezone settings, you must use a Posix-style TZ strings, e.g. TZ='PST8PDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2' for US Pacific time. Posix TZ strings can take the following form (with optional items in brackets):

    	StdOffset[Dst[Offset],Date/Time,Date/Time]

where:

`Std' is the standard time designation (e.g. `PST').
`Offset' is the number of hours behind UTC (e.g. `8'). Prepend a `-' if you are ahead of UTC, and append `:30' if you are at a half-hour offset. Omit all the remaining items if you do not use daylight-saving time.
`Dst' is the daylight-saving time designation (e.g. `PDT').
The optional second `Offset' is the number of hours that daylight-saving time is behind UTC. The default is 1 hour ahead of standard time.
`Date/Time,Date/Time' specify when daylight-saving time starts and ends. The format for a date is `Mm.n.d', which specifies the dth day (0 is Sunday) of the nth week of the mth month, where week 5 means the last such day in the month. The format for a time is [h]h[:mm[:ss]], using a 24-hour clock.

Other Posix string formats are allowed but you don't want to know about them.

On the client side, you must make sure that your client's clock and time zone is also set appropriately. [[I don't know how to do this.]] Samba traditionally has had many problems dealing with time zones, due to the bizarre ways that Microsoft network protocols handle time zones.

Prev | Up | Next
Chapter 1. General Information | Home | Chapter 3. Specific client application problems