Glossary

browseable — whether a share appears when a client lists a Samba server. Not an access control: hidden shares are still reachable by name.

CIFS — the old name for the SMB dialect family; survives in mount -t cifs and cifs-utils.

Export — a directory an NFS server offers, with a client list and options, declared in /etc/exports.

exportfs — the command that loads /etc/exports into the running server (-ra) and shows the effective table (-v).

Guest — an unauthenticated share user. Convenient, and trusted exactly as much as your least-trusted network device.

Mount — attaching a share at a local directory so programs use it as ordinary files.

NT_STATUS_... — SMB's error vocabulary (NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE, NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED). Ugly, greppable, honest.

passdb — Samba's own account database (pdbedit inspects it), distinct from the Unix password file but keyed to Unix accounts.

root_squash — NFS mapping a client's root user to nobody on the server. The default; keep it.

Share — a directory Samba offers, named by its [section] in smb.conf.

smbclient — the command-line SMB client: lists shares, moves files, and serves as the first diagnostic.

smb.conf — Samba's one config file; [global] plus one section per share. testparm validates it.

SMB1 — the ancient, insecure first protocol version. Disabled by default everywhere modern; keep it that way.

testparm — prints Samba's effective config and warns about the parameters it ignored.

UID — the numeric user ID. NFS identity is UIDs; names are local translations.

valid users — the Samba share option listing which enrolled users may connect to that share.