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+This is thre release version of Samba, the free SMB and CIFS client and
+server for UNIX and other operating systems. Samba is maintained by
+the Samba Team, who support the original author, Andrew Tridgell.
+
+>>>> Please read THE WHOLE of this file as it gives important information
+>>>> about the configuration and use of Samba.
+
+NOTE: Installation instructions may be found in 
+      docs/htmldocs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/install.html
+
+This software is freely distributable under the GNU public license, a
+copy of which you should have received with this software (in a file
+called COPYING). 
+
+
+WHAT IS SMB/CIFS?
+=================
+
+This is a big question. 
+
+The very short answer is that it is the protocol by which a lot of
+PC-related machines share files and printers and other information
+such as lists of available files and printers. Operating systems that
+support this natively include Windows 9x, Windows NT (and derivatives), 
+OS/2, Mac OS X and Linux.  Add on packages that achieve the same 
+thing are available for DOS, Windows 3.1, VMS, Unix of all kinds, 
+MVS, and more.  Some Web Browsers can speak this protocol as well 
+(smb://).  Alternatives to SMB include Netware, NFS, Appletalk, 
+Banyan Vines, Decnet etc; many of these have advantages but none are 
+both public specifications and widely implemented in desktop machines 
+by default.
+
+The Common Internet File system (CIFS) is what the new SMB initiative
+is called. For details watch http://samba.org/cifs.
+
+
+WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO USE SMB?
+==============================
+
+1. Many people want to integrate their Microsoft desktop clients
+   with their Unix servers.
+
+2. Others want to integrate their Microsoft (etc) servers with Unix
+   servers. This is a different problem to integrating desktop 
+   clients.
+
+3. Others want to replace protocols like NFS, DecNet and Novell NCP,
+   especially when used with PCs.
+
+
+WHAT CAN SAMBA DO?
+==================
+
+Please refer to the WHATSNEW.txt included with this README for
+a list of features in the latest Samba release.
+
+Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does. 
+For many networks this can be simply summarized by "Samba provides 
+a complete replacement for Windows NT, Warp, NFS or Netware servers."
+
+- a SMB server, to provide Windows NT and LAN Manager-style file and print 
+  services to SMB clients such as Windows 95, Warp Server, smbfs and others.
+
+- a Windows NT 4.0 Domain Controller replacement.
+
+- a file/print server that can act as a member of a Windows NT 4.0
+  or Active Directory domain.
+
+- a NetBIOS (rfc1001/1002) nameserver, which amongst other things gives 
+  browsing support. Samba can be the master browser on your LAN if you wish.
+
+- a ftp-like SMB client so you can access PC resources (disks and
+  printers) from UNIX, Netware, and other operating systems
+
+- a tar extension to the client for backing up PCs
+
+- limited command-line tool that supports some of the NT administrative
+  functionality, which can be used on Samba, NT workstation and NT server.
+
+For a much better overview have a look at the web site at
+http://samba.org/samba, and browse the user survey.
+
+Related packages include:
+
+- smbfs, a Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount remote SMB
+filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included as standard with
+Linux 2.0 and later.
+
+- cifsvfs, a more advanced Linux-only filesystem allowing you to mount 
+remote SMB filesystems from PCs on your Linux box. This is included 
+as standard with Linux 2.5 and later.
+
+
+
+CONTRIBUTIONS
+=============
+
+If you want to contribute to the development of the software then
+please join the mailing list. The Samba team accepts patches
+(preferably in "diff -u" format, see http://samba.org/samba/devel/ 
+for more details) and are always glad to receive feedback or 
+suggestions to the address samba@lists.samba.org.  More information
+on the various Samba mailing lists can be found at http://lists.samba.org/.
+
+You can also get the Samba sourcecode straight from the Subversion tree - see
+http://samba.org/samba/subversion.html.
+
+You could also send hardware/software/money/jewelry or pre-paid pizza
+vouchers directly to Andrew. The pizza vouchers would be especially
+welcome, in fact there is a special field in the survey for people who
+have paid up their pizza :-)
+
+If you like a particular feature then look through the Subversion change-log
+(on the web at http://websvn.samba.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi) and see
+who added it, then send them an email.
+
+Remember that free software of this kind lives or dies by the response
+we get. If no one tells us they like it then we'll probably move onto
+something else. However, as you can see from the user survey quite a lot of 
+people do seem to like it at the moment :-)
+
+
+MORE INFO
+=========
+
+DOCUMENTATION
+-------------
+
+There is quite a bit of documentation included with the package,
+including man pages, and lots of .html files with hints and useful
+info. This is also available from the web page. There is a growing
+collection of information under docs/.
+
+A list of Samba documentation in languages other than English is
+available on the web page.
+
+If you would like to help with the documentation (and we _need_ help!)
+then have a look at the mailing list samba-docs, archived at
+http://lists.samba.org/listinfo/samba-docs/
+
+
+MAILING LIST
+------------
+
+Please do NOT send subscription/unsubscription requests to the lists!
+
+There is a mailing list for discussion of Samba.  For details go to
+<http://lists.samba.org/> or send mail to <samba-subscribe@lists.samba.org>
+
+There is also an announcement mailing list where new versions are
+announced.  To subscribe go to <http://lists.samba.org/> or send mail
+to <samba-announce-subscribe@lists.samba.org>.  All announcements also
+go to the samba list, so you only need to be on one.
+
+For details of other Samba mailing lists and for access to archives, see
+<http://lists.samba.org/>
+
+
+MAILING LIST ETIQUETTE
+----------------------
+
+A few tips when submitting to this or any mailing list.
+
+1. Make your subject short and descriptive. Avoid the words "help" or
+   "Samba" in the subject. The readers of this list already know that
+   a) you need help, and b) you are writing about samba (of course,
+   you may need to distinguish between Samba PDC and other file
+   sharing software). Avoid phrases such as "what is" and "how do
+   i". Some good subject lines might look like "Slow response with
+   Excel files" or "Migrating from Samba PDC to NT PDC".
+
+2. If you include the original message in your reply, trim it so that
+   only the relevant lines, enough to establish context, are
+   included. Chances are (since this is a mailing list) we've already
+   read the original message.
+
+3. Trim irrelevant headers from the original message in your
+   reply. All we need to see is a) From, b) Date, and c) Subject. We
+   don't even really need the Subject, if you haven't changed
+   it. Better yet is to just preface the original message with "On
+   [date] [someone] wrote:".
+
+4. Please don't reply to or argue about spam, spam filters or viruses
+   on any Samba lists. We do have a spam filtering system that is
+   working quite well thank you very much but occasionally unwanted
+   messages slip through. Deal with it.
+
+5. Never say "Me too." It doesn't help anyone solve the
+   problem. Instead, if you ARE having the same problem, give more
+   information. Have you seen something that the other writer hasn't
+   mentioned, which may be helpful?
+
+6. If you ask about a problem, then come up with the solution on your
+   own or through another source, by all means post it. Someone else
+   may have the same problem and is waiting for an answer, but never
+   hears of it.
+
+7. Give as much *relevant* information as possible such as Samba
+   release number, OS, kernel version, etc...
+
+8. RTFM. Google. groups.google.com.
+
+
+NEWS GROUP
+----------
+
+You might also like to look at the usenet news group comp.protocols.smb 
+as it often contains lots of useful info and is frequented by lots of 
+Samba users. The newsgroup was initially setup by people on the Samba 
+mailing list. It is not, however, exclusive to Samba, it is a forum for 
+discussing the SMB protocol (which Samba implements). The samba list 
+is gatewayed to this newsgroup.
+
+
+WEB SITE
+--------
+
+A Samba WWW site has been setup with lots of useful info. Connect to:
+
+http://samba.org/samba/
+
+As well as general information and documentation, this also has searchable 
+archives of the mailing list and a user survey that shows who else is using
+this package. Have you registered with the survey yet? :-)
+