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# 5.56. Windows Shares

## 5.56.1. Introduction

In many small local area networks the SMB protocol is used to offer network services. Names like "Windows Network" or "Windows for Workgroups Network" or "LanManager" are often used as well. Using SMB you can access so-called "shares" (i.e. directories made available by the server) as well as printers.

KDE comes with builtin support for the SMB protocol. As KDE is network-transparent that means you can access SMB shares from everywhere you can access your local files, for example in the Konqueror file manager and in the file dialog. To make use of this you should provide KDE with some information on your SMB network. But don't worry, this is normally pretty simple as for example all the Windows clients in your network need and have the same information.

| For the SMB protocol to work it is required to have samba correctly installed. If you have a NT domain controller, you will need at least samba version 2.0 or higher. If you want to access Windows® 2000 shares, you will need samba version 2.0.7 or higher. Older versions may work, too, but have not been tested.

## 5.56.2. Use

Although there are a lot of insecure SMB networks out there which allow access to anyone, in principle you have to authentificate yourself to access the services of an SMB server. By default, KDE will use the data entered in the Default user name and Default password fields to authentificate itself on SMB hosts. If you let the field Default user name empty, KDE will try to access SMB hosts without a username. If you let the default password empty, it will try without a password. If KDE doesn't succeed to access the host using these settings, you will be asked for a username and a password.

| While it makes things more comfortable if KDE stores your SMB password, this may be a security problem. If you are using SMB in a security conscious environment, you should not store your password here but rather enter it anew every time you need to access an SMB host.

In the Workgroup field, you can enter your workgroup name. If you don't know it, ask your system administrator or have a look at other already configured machines in your network. However, in most cases providing the workgroup name is not required, so you probably can also leave this empty.

If the option Show hidden shares is checked, shares ending with an "$" will be shown.

## 5.56.3. Section Author

This section written by: Jost Schenck `<jost@schenck.de>`

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