NAME
libsmbclient - An extension library for browsers and that can be used
as a generic browsing API.
SYNOPSIS
Browser URL:
smb://[[[domain:]user[:password@]]server[/share[/path[/file]]]]
[?options]
DESCRIPTION
This tool is part of the samba(7) suite.
libsmbclient is a library toolset that permits applications to
manipulate CIFS/SMB network resources using many of the standards POSIX
functions available for manipulating local UNIX/Linux files. It permits
much more than just browsing, files can be opened and read or written,
permissions changed, file times modified, attributes and ACL's can be
manipulated, and so on. Of course, its functionality includes all the
capabilities commonly called browsing.
libsmbclient can not be used directly from the command line, instead it
provides an extension of the capabilities of tools such as file
managers and browsers. This man page describes the configuration
options for this tool so that the user may obtain greatest utility of
use.
OPTIONS
What the URLs mean:
smb://
Shows all workgroups or domains that are visible in the network.
The behavior matches that of the Microsoft Windows Explorer.
The method of locating the list of workgroups (domains also) varies
depending on the setting of the context variable
(context->options.browse_max_lmb_count). It is the responsibility
of the application that calls this library to set this to a
sensible value. This is a compile-time option. This value
determines the maximum number of local master browsers to query for
the list of workgroups. In order to ensure that the list is
complete for those present on the network, all master browsers must
be querried. If there are a large number of workgroups on the
network, the time spent querying will be significant. For small
networks (just a few workgroups), it is suggested to set this value
to 0, instructing libsmbclient to query all local master browsers.
In an environment that has many workgroups a more reasonable
setting may be around 3.
smb://name/
This command causes libsmbclient to perform a name look-up. If the
NAME<1D> or NAME<1B> exists (workgroup name), libsmbclient will
list all servers in the workgroup (or domain). Otherwise, a name
look-up for the NAME<20> (machine name) will be performed, and the
list of shared resources on the server will be displayed.
When libsmbclient is invoked by an application it searches for a
directory called .smb in the $HOME directory that is specified in the
users shell environment. It then searches for a file called smb.conf
which, if present, will fully over-ride the system /etc/samba/smb.conf
file. If instead libsmbclient finds a file called
~/.smb/smb.conf.append, it will read the system /etc/samba/smb.conf and
then append the contents of the ~/.smb/smb.conf.append to it.
libsmbclient will check the users shell environment for the USER
parameter and will use its value when if the user parameter was not
included in the URL.
PROGRAMMERS GUIDE
Watch this space for future updates.
VERSION
This man page is correct for version 3 of the Samba suite.
AUTHOR
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by
Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open
Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.
The libsmbclient manpage page was written by John H Terpstra.