Samba

Samba is a software that implements a server of the Windows filesharing protocol (SMB, thus the name SaMBa). A Linux machine that runs Samba can provide shared drives to Windows clients. NoTouch has Samba integrated and can share its drives to

Samba is easily started by setting the "Start Samba service" parameter under "Services" to "on". Please make sure the device reboots for this change to take effect.

With activated Samba, you can e.g. use a UNC-path notation \\CLIENT to access the NoTouch system (substitute CLIENT for the real name or IP address of your machine). It will have only one shared drive called Z. When asked for authentication credentials, use username "root" (without quotes) and the client administrator password you have set (default is admin).

People use Samba with protocols that do not support drive mapping, such as PCoIP and USB forwarding is not possible, e.g. with internal (non-USB) CD-ROM or DVD drives.

Using Samba opens a TCP port on the PC thus potentially creating an entrance door for remote attacks. See #Security considerations.

Contents

Connecting from Windows

There are two different ways how to do it - we'd suggest to do the "GUI way" first to verify it is working.

GUI

Please see here for instructions: [1] Use "root" as username (without any domain name, without the quotes) and your client admin password (which is "admin" by default, without the quotes).

The computername/host name in question is the name of the thin client/NoTouch machine. If you don't know the IP address or host name of the client machine, you can find it out by entering the Configuration on the client before starting the VMware connection, or you can use the Windows environment variable %CLIENTNAME%

The share name is always Z. Just the letter Z.

Please also make sure there are no firewalls blocking the way - in this case it's the datacenter side (the VDI desktop) that is using a service of the local client (the Samba, i.e. Windows file sharing service).

net use

net use is a command line tool that allows you to do the same you can do in the GUI, but scriptable. If you run CMD.EXE (Win-R, type in CMD.EXE) you can type net use and hit Enter to get a basic description.

A good command to start would be:

       net use X: \\clientIPaddr\Z /user:root

(When asked for a password, type in your client admin password - "admin" by default, unless you've changed it) Please replace clientIPaddr with the actual hostname or IP address. You could actually do something like

      net use X: \\%clientname%\z /user:root /persistent:yes

This is real luxus, it takes the client name automatically from the environment variables and makes sure the connection will be restored automatically when logging in again. Note: If you use VMware View, you can use environment variables %ViewClient_Machine_Name% or %ViewClient_IP_Address%.

The full documentation of net use is here: [2]

Security considerations

Samba in NoTouch is rarely used. We strongly advise to NOT use it unless specifically needed. Fortunately, with today's mature USB forwarding and the internal CD-ROM drives disappearing, there is not much need for it any more.