# FreeBSD on Windows network for newbies ?



## naybee (Mar 16, 2010)

Hi all ! 

very nice place here ! excuse my english, its not my first language ! ok here is my question. I've been using Debian for a couple of years now and I would like to give a try at freeBSD. 

I would be using it at work where all the network is windows served. I would like to know if it is easy to configure to be able to use all the resources on the network. I'm not an IT guy nor do I have alot of knowledge in bsd or *nix. 

I'm currently using samba and have a vmware with xp running into with debian as my main os.

thanx in advance !

nay


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## alelab (Mar 16, 2010)

Hi,

No problem : Samba as been ported to FreeBSD. You can search your version here http://www.freshports.org/
To have a good start with FreeBSD, you *MUST* read the handbook http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html

Have fun


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## SirDice (Mar 16, 2010)

VMware will be somewhat tricky but I think emulators/virtualbox-ose will do fine instead :e

Since you already have vmware running I would suggest running a few installs with a freebsd guest. Just to get the hang of things


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## GhettoBSD (Mar 16, 2010)

You might actually find that running SAMBA is better/easier to run, manage and create users/permissions than in windows.

I currently run bsd at my client (i'm a contractor) and have it set up for several purposes. One of them is to share files easily between different users on the network (group). I have 3 basic groups set up:
- the ghetto (folders that anyone can access, read and write to)
- limited (folders that require user login limited to those allowed access to it)
- personal (folder only I can access)

But you can mix and match these sort of directories anyway you like. You can give permissions by users or groups, or by folder. So it's very flexible and fairly easy enough to use.

I recommend you run BSD 8 with webmin, that'll help you take manage it a bit easier if you're new to fbsd.

Some places to find useful things:
/usr/ports/net/samba3
/usr/ports/sysutils/webmin

- To install the software, login to your console and navigate to those directories (using cd).
- Next as root type make install clean
- Make sure you read the output! It'll tell you how to connect and create a user and login to webmin!

Once you're in webmin you'll find it easy enough to get to samba and set that sucker up! Feel free to ask for help on it's config.

If using samba with win7 you'll have to mess with the ntlm authorization in spl or gpl policy. But it's nothing that's impossible to do!

good luck!


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