CHAPTER 23

Sharing Files and Printers

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using   Network File    System

Putting Samba   to  Work

Network and Remote  Printing    with    Ubuntu

References

In the early days of computing, file and printer sharing was pretty much

impossible because of the lack of good networking standards and
interoperability. If you wanted to use a printer connected to another computer,
you had to save the file to a floppy disk and walk to the other computer.
Sometimes people do practically the same thing today, using a USB thumb
drive or emailing the file. However, there are better ways.

Both file and printer sharing are important because it is not unusual for
someone to own more than one computer. Whether you want to share
photographs among various computers or have a central repository available
for collaboration, file sharing is an important part of the information age.
Alongside this is the need to be able to share printers; after all, people do not
want to have to plug and unplug a computer to a printer just so they can print
out a quick letter.

Whatever your reasons for needing to share files and printers across a
network, you find out how to do both in this chapter. This chapter shows you
how you can share files using the popular UNIX NFS protocol and the more
Windows-friendly Samba system. The chapter covers both graphical and
command-line tools, so you should find something to suit the way you work.

CAUTION

By  default,    Ubuntu  ships   with    all its network ports   blocked.    That    is, it  does

not listen  to  any requests    on  any network ports   when    it  is  first   installed.  To