Cooler samba; netbios sucks
From Microsoft: Direct hosting of SMB over TCP/IP
Windows supports file and printer sharing traffic by using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol directly hosted on TCP. This differs from earlier operating systems, in which SMB traffic requires the NetBIOS over TCP (NBT) protocol to work on a TCP/IP transport.
445 (SMB) is preferable over 137, 138, and 139 (old NetBIOS over TCP/IP aka NBT). In a nutshell SMB uses DNS and direct contact. NBT uses broadcasts and WINS.
So, NetBIOS isn't really necessary anymore. I have it turned off on all my windows clients. I just tested disabling it in the samba server at home and it works fine; even a little snappier. I'm not even running nmbd anymore. You must have domain resolution though; either FQDN or search domains.
Note no more 139 listening ports
styx:/var/log# netstat -anp | grep smbd tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:445 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 6128/smbd tcp 0 0 192.168.0.2:445 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 6128/smbd
Then here's my smb.conf file. Some nice tricks in there.
[global] # Biographical information server string = %h server (Samba %v) workgroup = SYMB # winpopups suck message command = /bin/true # not a print server load printers = no # yeah! Netbios is over. disable netbios = yes smb ports = 445 #dns proxy = no #local master = yes #os level = 20 #wins support = true #netbios name = styx #netbios aliases = house household home # Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d # security passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u encrypt passwords = true passdb backend = tdbsam obey pam restrictions = yes passwd chat = *Enter\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n . security = share max log size = 1000 # network options socket options = TCP_NODELAY bind interfaces only = yes interfaces = lo 127.0.0.1/32 eth1 192.168.0.0/24 # logging syslog = 2 syslog only = yes log level = 2 log file = /dev/null # locking # technically, reduces performance, but no contention errors oplocks = no fake oplocks = yes kernel oplocks = no level2 oplocks = no [homes] comment = Home Directories browseable = no writable = yes create mask = 0664 directory mask = 0775 hosts allow = 192.168.0. [household] path=/mnt/family comment=communal browseable=yes writable=yes public=yes force user=smb force group=smb force create mode = 0664 force directory mode = 0775 hosts allow = 192.168.0.