Understanding Samba utilities: nmblookup, smbstatus, smbtar, testparm, wbinfo, smbget

The following list summarizes the command-line utilities included with the Samba packages. Use the ‘which utility‘ command to display the absolute pathname of the command. Include the output as an argument to the ‘rpm -qf‘ command to display which Samba package provides the command.

For Example :

# which smbtree
/bin/smbtree

# rpm -qf /bin/smbtree 
samba-client-4.6.2-12.el7_4.x86_64

The Samba command-line utilities include the following:

• smbtree: Is a text-based SMB network browser
• smbclient: Is an FTP-like client to access SMB/CIFS resources on servers
• smbpasswd: Is used to add or modify a user’s SMB password
• smbcacls: Modifies Windows ACLs on files and directories shared by a Samba server or a Windows server
• nmblookup: Is used to query NetBIOS names and map them to IP addresses
• net: Is a tool for the administration of Samba and remote CIFS servers. It is designed to work like the net utility used for Windows and MS-DOS. The syntax is:

# net [protocol] [options]

The [protocol] argument specifies the protocol to use when executing a command. Specify the type of server connection by using ads (Active Directory), rap (Win9x/NT3), or rpc (Windows NT4/2000/2003/2008). If the protocol argument is not specified, net automatically tries to identify it. Use "net -h" for online help and usage examples.

• rpcclient: Is a tool for executing client-side Microsoft RPCs functions
• smbcontrol: Sends control messages to running smbd, nmbd, or winbindd daemons
• smbspool: Sends a print file to an SMB printer
• smbstatus: Displays the status of current connections to a Samba server
• smbtar:Backs up and restores Windows-based share files and directories to a local Linux tape archive
• testparm: Checks the syntax of the /etc/samba/smb.conf file
• wbinfo: Displays information from the winbindd daemon (The winbindd daemon must be running.)
• smbcquotas: Manipulates quotas on NT file system (NTFS) SMB file shares
• smbget: Is a wget-like utility for downloading files over SMB