smbclient servicename [-s smb.conf] [-O socket options][-R name resolve order] [-M NetBIOS name] [-i scope] [-N] [-n NetBIOS name] [-d debuglevel] [-P] [-p port] [-l log basename] [-h] [-I dest IP] [-E] [-U username] [-L NetBIOS name] [-t terminal code] [-m max protocol] [-b buffersize] [-W workgroup] [-T<c|x>IXFqgbNan] [-D directory] [-c command string]
This program is part of the Samba suite.
smbclient is a client that can 'talk' to an SMB/CIFS server. It offers an interface similar to that of the ftp program (see ftp (1)). Operations include things like getting files from the server to the local machine, putting files from the local machine to the server, retrieving directory information from the server and so on.
//server/service where server is the NetBIOS name of the SMB/CIFS
server offering the desired service and service is the name
of the service offered. Thus to connect to the service printer on
the SMB/CIFS server smbserver, you would use the servicename
//smbserver/printer
Note that the server name required is NOT necessarily the IP (DNS) host name of the server ! The name required is a NetBIOS server name, which may or may not be the same as the IP hostname of the machine running the server.
The server name is looked up according to either the -R parameter to smbclient or using the name resolve order parameter in the smb.conf file, allowing an administrator to change the order and methods by which server names are looked up.
There is no default password. If no password is supplied on the command line (either by using this parameter or adding a password to the -U option (see below)) and the -N option is not specified, the client will prompt for a password, even if the desired service does not require one. (If no password is required, simply press ENTER to provide a null password.)
Note: Some servers (including OS/2 and Windows for Workgroups) insist on an uppercase password. Lowercase or mixed case passwords may be rejected by these servers.
Be cautious about including passwords in scripts.
The options are :"lmhosts", "host", "wins" and "bcast". They cause names to be resolved as follows :
If this parameter is not set then the name resolve order defined in the smb.conf file parameter (name resolve order) will be used.
The default order is lmhosts, host, wins, bcast and without this parameter or any entry in the "name resolve order" parameter of the smb.conf file the name resolution methods will be attempted in this order.
If the receiving computer is running WinPopup the user will receive the message and probably a beep. If they are not running WinPopup the message will be lost, and no error message will occur.
The message is also automatically truncated if the message is over 1600 bytes, as this is the limit of the protocol.
One useful trick is to cat the message through smbclient. For example:
cat mymessage.txt | smbclient -M FRED
will send the message in the file mymessage.txt to the machine FRED.
You may also find the -U and -I options useful, as they allow you to control the FROM and TO parts of the message.
See the message command parameter in the smb.conf (5) for a description of how to handle incoming WinPopup messages in Samba.
Note: Copy WinPopup into the startup group on your WfWg PCs if you want them to always be able to receive messages.
Unless a password is specified on the command line or this parameter is specified, the client will request a password.
The default value if this parameter is not specified is zero.
The higher this value, the more detail will be logged to the log files about the activities of the client. At level 0, only critical errors and serious warnings will be logged. Level 1 is a reasonable level for day to day running - it generates a small amount of information about operations carried out.
Levels above 1 will generate considerable amounts of log data, and should only be used when investigating a problem. Levels above 3 are designed for use only by developers and generate HUGE amounts of log data, most of which is extremely cryptic. If debuglevel is set to the letter 'A', then all debug messages will be printed. This setting is for developers only (and people who really want to know how the code works internally).
Note that specifying this parameter here will override the log level parameter in the smb.conf (5) file.
The default base name is specified at compile time.
The base name is used to generate actual log file names. For example,
if the name specified was "log", the debug file would be
log.client.
The log file generated is never removed by the client.
Normally the client would attempt to locate a named SMB/CIFS server by looking it up via the NetBIOS name resolution mechanism described above in the name resolve order parameter above. Using this parameter will force the client to assume that the server is on the machine with the specified IP address and the NetBIOS name component of the resource being connected to will be ignored.
There is no default for this parameter. If not supplied, it will be determined automatically by the client as described above.
By default, the client writes messages to standard output - typically the user's tty.
Some servers are fussy about the case of this name, and some insist that it must be a valid NetBIOS name.
If no username is supplied, it will default to an uppercase version of
the environment variable USER or LOGNAME in that order. If no
username is supplied and neither environment variable exists the
username "GUEST" will be used.
If the USER environment variable contains a '%' character,
everything after that will be treated as a password. This allows you
to set the environment variable to be USER=username%password so
that a password is not passed on the command line (where it may be
seen by the ps command).
If the service you are connecting to requires a password, it can be
supplied using the -U option, by appending a percent symbol ("%")
then the password to username. For example, to attach to a service as
user "fred" with password "secret", you would specify.
-U fred%secret
on the command line. Note that there are no spaces around the percent symbol.
If you specify the password as part of username then the -N option (suppress password prompt) is assumed.
If you specify the password as a parameter AND as part of username then the password as part of username will take precedence. Putting nothing before or nothing after the percent symbol will cause an empty username or an empty password to be used, respectively.
The password may also be specified by setting up an environment
variable called PASSWD that contains the users password. Note
that this may be very insecure on some systems but on others allows
users to script smbclient commands without having a password appear in
the command line of a process listing.
Note: Some servers (including OS/2 and Windows for Workgroups) insist on an uppercase password. Lowercase or mixed case passwords may be rejected by these servers.
Be cautious about including passwords in scripts or in the
PASSWD environment variable. Also, on many systems the command
line of a running process may be seen via the ps command to be
safe always allow smbclient to prompt for a password and type it in
directly.
"smbclient -L host" and a
list should appear. The -I option may be useful if your NetBIOS
names don't match your tcp/ip dns host names or if you are trying to
reach a host on another network.
The terminal codes include sjis, euc, jis7, jis8,
junet, hex, cap. This is not a complete list, check the
Samba source code for the complete list.
"-" for standard output. If
using standard output you must turn the log level to its lowest value
-d0 to avoid corrupting your tar file. This flag is
mutually exclusive with the x flag.
"-" for standard input. Mutually exclusive
with the c flag. Restored files have their creation times (mtime)
set to the date saved in the tar file. Directories currently do not
get their creation dates restored properly.
Tar Long File Names
smbclient's tar option now supports long file names both on backup and restore. However, the full path name of the file must be less than 1024 bytes. Also, when a tar archive is created, smbclient's tar option places all files in the archive with relative names, not absolute names.
Tar Filenames
All file names can be given as DOS path names (with \ as the
component separator) or as UNIX path names (with / as the
component separator).
Examples
smbclient //mypc/myshare "" -N -Tx backup.tar
smbclient //mypc/myshare "" -N -TXx backup.tar users/docs
smbclient //mypc/myshare "" -N -Tc backup.tar users/docs
smbclient //mypc/myshare "" -N -tc backup.tar users\edocs
smbclient //mypc/myshare "" -N -Tc backup.tar *
This is particularly useful in scripts and for printing stdin to the
server, e.g. -c 'print -'.
Once the client is running, the user is presented with a prompt :
smb:\>
The backslash ("\") indicates the current working directory on the server, and will change if the current working directory is changed.
The prompt indicates that the client is ready and waiting to carry out a user command. Each command is a single word, optionally followed by parameters specific to that command. Command and parameters are space-delimited unless these notes specifically state otherwise. All commands are case-insensitive. Parameters to commands may or may not be case sensitive, depending on the command.
You can specify file names which have spaces in them by quoting the name with double quotes, for example "a long file name".
Parameters shown in square brackets (e.g., "[parameter]") are optional. If not given, the command will use suitable defaults. Parameters shown in angle brackets (e.g., "<parameter>") are required.
Note that all commands operating on the server are actually performed by issuing a request to the server. Thus the behavior may vary from server to server, depending on how the server was implemented.
The commands available are given here in alphabetical order.
If no directory name is specified, the current working directory on the server will be reported.
If no directory name is specified, the name of the current working directory on the local machine will be reported.
When lowercasing is toggled ON, local filenames are converted to lowercase when using the get and mget commands. This is often useful when copying (say) MSDOS files from a server, because lowercase filenames are the norm on UNIX systems.
The masks specified to the mget and mput commands act as filters for directories rather than files when recursion is toggled ON.
The mask specified with the .B mask command is necessary to filter files within those directories. For example, if the mask specified in an mget command is "source*" and the mask specified with the mask command is "*.c" and recursion is toggled ON, the mget command will retrieve all files matching "*.c" in all directories below and including all directories matching "source*" in the current working directory.
Note that the value for mask defaults to blank (equivalent to "*") and remains so until the mask command is used to change it. It retains the most recently specified value indefinitely. To avoid unexpected results it would be wise to change the value of .I mask back to "*" after using the mget or mput commands.
Note that mask is interpreted differently during recursive operation and non-recursive operation - refer to the recurse and mask commands for more information. Note that all transfers in .B smbclient are binary. See also the lowercase command.
Note that mask is interpreted differently during recursive operation and non-recursive operation - refer to the recurse and mask commands for more information. Note that all transfers in .B smbclient are binary.
See also the printmode command.
When toggled ON, the user will be prompted to confirm the transfer of each file during these commands. When toggled OFF, all specified files will be transferred without prompting.
When toggled ON, these commands will process all directories in the source directory (i.e., the directory they are copying .IR from ) and will recurse into any that match the mask specified to the command. Only files that match the mask specified using the mask command will be retrieved. See also the mask command.
When recursion is toggled OFF, only files from the current working directory on the source machine that match the mask specified to the mget or mput commands will be copied, and any mask specified using the mask command will be ignored.
setmode myfile +r
would make myfile read only.
Some servers are fussy about the case of supplied usernames, passwords, share names (AKA service names) and machine names. If you fail to connect try giving all parameters in uppercase.
It is often necessary to use the -n option when connecting to some types of servers. For example OS/2 LanManager insists on a valid NetBIOS name being used, so you need to supply a valid name that would be known to the server.
smbclient supports long file names where the server supports the LANMAN2 protocol or above.
The variable USER may contain the username of the person using the client. This information is used only if the protocol level is high enough to support session-level passwords.
The variable PASSWD may contain the password of the person using the client. This information is used only if the protocol level is high enough to support session-level passwords.
The location of the client program is a matter for individual system administrators. The following are thus suggestions only.
It is recommended that the smbclient software be installed in the /usr/local/samba/bin or /usr/samba/bin directory, this directory readable by all, writeable only by root. The client program itself should be executable by all. The client should NOT be setuid or setgid!
The client log files should be put in a directory readable and writeable only by the user.
To test the client, you will need to know the name of a running SMB/CIFS server. It is possible to run smbd (8) an ordinary user - running that server as a daemon on a user-accessible port (typically any port number over 1024) would provide a suitable test server.
Most diagnostics issued by the client are logged in a specified log file. The log file name is specified at compile time, but may be overridden on the command line.
The number and nature of diagnostics available depends on the debug level used by the client. If you have problems, set the debug level to 3 and peruse the log files.
This man page is correct for version 2.0 of the Samba suite.
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell samba-bugs@samba.org. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.
The original Samba man pages were written by Karl Auer. The man page sources were converted to YODL format (another excellent piece of Open Source software, available at ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/) and updated for the Samba2.0 release by Jeremy Allison. samba-bugs@samba.org.
See samba (7) to find out how to get a full list of contributors and details on how to submit bug reports, comments etc.