Because it could be a number of things, including networking itself not
being configured properly, I recommend you go to the troubleshooting
steps here (or another closer Samba mirror):
www.samba.org/.../diagnosis.html
Look for "Procedure 38.1. Diagnosing Your Samba Server"
In the directory in which you store your smb.conf file, run the command testparm smb.conf. If it reports any errors, then your smb.conf configuration file is faulty.
Note
Your smb.conf file may be located in /etc/samba or in /usr/local/samba/lib.
Run the command ping BIGSERVER from the PC and ping ACLIENT from the UNIX box. If you do not get a valid response, then your TCP/IP software is not correctly installed.
You will need to start a “DOS prompt” window on the PC to run ping.
If you get a message saying “host not found” or a similar message, then your DNS software or /etc/hosts file is not correctly set up. If using DNS, check that the /etc/resolv.conf has correct, current, entries in it. It is possible to run Samba without DNS entries for the server and client, but it is assumed you do have correct entries for the remainder of these tests.
Another reason why ping might fail is if your host is running firewall software. You will need to relax the rules to let in the workstation in question, perhaps by allowing access from another subnet (on Linux this is done via the appropriate firewall maintenance commands ipchains or iptables).
Note
Modern Linux distributions install ipchains/iptables by default. This is a common problem that is often overlooked.
If you wish to check what firewall rules may be present in a system under test, simply run iptables -L -v, or if ipchains-based firewall rules are in use, ipchains -L -v.
Here is a sample listing from a system that has an external Ethernet interface (eth1) on which Samba is not active and an internal (private network) interface (eth0) on which Samba is active:
frodo:~ # iptables -L -v
Chain INPUT (policy DROP 98496 packets, 12M bytes)
pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination
187K 109M ACCEPT all -- lo any anywhere anywhere
892K 125M ACCEPT all -- eth0 any anywhere anywhere
1399K 1380M ACCEPT all -- eth1 any anywhere anywhere \
state RELATED,ESTABLISHED
Chain FORWARD (policy DROP 0 packets, 0 bytes)
pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination
978K 1177M ACCEPT all -- eth1 eth0 anywhere anywhere \
state RELATED,ESTABLISHED
658K 40M ACCEPT all -- eth0 eth1 anywhere anywhere
0 0 LOG all -- any any anywhere anywhere \
LOG level warning
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT 2875K packets, 1508M bytes)
pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination
Chain reject_func (0 references)
pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination
Run the command smbclient -L BIGSERVER on the UNIX box. You should get back a list of available shares.
If you get an error message containing the string “bad password”, then you probably have either an incorrect hosts allow, hosts deny, or valid users line in your smb.conf, or your guest account is not valid. Check what your guest account is using testparm and temporarily remove any hosts allow, hosts deny, valid users, or invalid users lines.
If you get a message connection refused response, then the smbd server may not be running. If you installed it in inetd.conf, then you probably edited that file incorrectly. If you installed it as a daemon, then check that it is running and check that the netbios-ssn port is in a LISTEN state using netstat -a.
Note
Some UNIX/Linux systems use xinetd in place of inetd. Check your system documentation for the location of the control files for your particular system implementation of the network super daemon.
If you get a message saying session request failed, the server refused the connection. If it says “Your server software is being unfriendly,” then it's probably because you have invalid command line parameters to smbd, or a similar fatal problem with the initial startup of smbd. Also check your config file (smb.conf) for syntax errors with testparm and that the various directories where Samba keeps its log and lock files exist.
There are a number of reasons for which smbd may refuse or decline a session request.
If you have problems with any of the steps, come back and tell us what
is happening or where you have trouble.