SMBCLIENT(1)
NAME
smbclient - ftp-like Lan Manager client program
SYNOPSIS
smbclient servicename [ password ] [ -E ] [ -L host ] [ -M
host ] [ -I IP number ] [ -R name resolve order ] [ -N ] [
-P ] [ -U username ] [ -d debuglevel ] [ -l log basename ]
[ -n netbios name ] [ -W workgroup ] [ -O socket options ]
[ -p port number ] [ -c command string ] [ -T tar options
] [ -D initial directory ]
DESCRIPTION
This program is part of the Samba suite.
smbclient is a client that can 'talk' to a Lan Manager
server. It offers an interface similar to that of the ftp
program (see ftp(1)). Operations include things like get-
ting 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.
OPTIONS
servicename
servicename is the name of the service you want to use
on the server. A service name takes the form
\\server\service where server is the netbios name of
the Lan Manager server offering the desired service and
service is the name of the service offered. Thus to
connect to the service "printer" on the Lan Manager
server "lanman", you would use the servicename
\\lanman\printer
Note that the server name required is NOT necessarily
the host name of the server! The name required is a Lan
Manager server name, which may or may not be the same
as the hostname of the machine running the server.
With Samba 1.9.18p4 the server name is looked up
according to 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.
password
password is the password required to access the speci-
fied service on the specified server. If supplied, the
-N option (suppress password prompt) is assumed.
There is no default password. If no password is sup-
plied on the command line (either here or using the -U
option (see below)) and -N is not specified, the client
will prompt for a password, even if the desired service
does not require one. (If no password is required, sim-
ply 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.
-R name resolve order
This parameter will override the default name resolu-
tion order of the server listed in the "name resolve
order" parameter in smb.conf. This is useful to force
name resolution to take place by a particular method.
This command line parameter only exists in Samba
1.9.18p4 and above.
-L
This option allows you to look at what services are
available on a server. You use it as "smbclient -L
host" and a list should appear. The -I option may be
useful if your netbios names don't match your tcp/ip
host names or if you are trying to reach a host on
another network. For example:
smbclient -L ftp -I ftp.microsoft.com
will list the shares available on Microsoft's public
server.
-M
This options allows you to send messages, using the
"WinPopup" protocol, to another computer. Once a con-
nection is established you then type your message,
pressing ^D (control-D) to end.
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 mes-
sage is over 1600 bytes, as this is the limit of the
protocol.
One useful trick is to cat the message through smb-
client. 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 mes-
sage.
See the message command section of 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 mes-
sages.
-E
This parameter, if specified, causes the client to
write messages to the standard error stream (stderr)
rather than to the standard output stream.
By default, the client writes messages to standard out-
put - typically the user's tty.
-I IP number
IP number represents the IP number of the server to
connect to. It should be specified in standard
"a.b.c.d" notation.
Normally the client will attempt to locate the speci-
fied Lan Manager server by looking it up - that is,
broadcasting a request for the given server to identify
itself. Using this parameter will force the client to
assume that the server is on the machine with the spec-
ified IP number.
There is no default for this parameter. If not sup-
plied, it will be determined automatically by the
client as described above.
-N
If specified, this parameter suppresses the normal
password prompt from the client to the user. This is
useful when accessing a service that does not require a
password.
Unless a password is specified on the command line or
this parameter is specified, the client will request a
password.
-O socket options
See the socket options section of smb.conf(5) for
details.
-P
If specified, the service requested will be connected
to as a printer service rather than as a normal
filespace service. Operations such as put and get will
not be applicable for such a connection.
By default, services will be connected to as NON-
printer services.
-U username
username is the user name that will be used by the
client to make a connection, assuming your server is
running a protocol that allows for usernames.
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 user name will
be empty.
If the USER environment variable containts a '%' char-
acter, everything after that will be treated as a pass-
word. 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 pass-
word, 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.
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.
-d debuglevel
debuglevel is an integer from 0 to 5, or the letter
'A'.
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 the debuglevel is set to 'A' then the debug level is
set to the maximum value possible (it stands for debug
'all').
-l log basename
If specified, log basename specifies a base filename
into which operational data from the running client
will be logged.
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 following files would be used for log data:
log.client.debug (containing debugging information)
log.client.in (containing inbound transaction data)
log.client.out (containing outbound transaction
data)
The log files generated are never removed by the
client.
-n netbios name
By default, the client will use the local machine's
hostname (in uppercase) as its netbios name. This
parameter allows you to override the host name and use
whatever netbios name you wish.
-W workgroup
Override what workgroup is used for the connection.
This may be needed to connect to some servers.
-p port number
port number is a positive integer value.
The default value if this parameter is not specified is
139.
This number is the port number that will be used when
making connections to the server. The standard (well-
known) port number for the server is 139, hence the
default.
This parameter is not normally specified.
-T tar options
where tar options consists of one or more of c, x, I,
X, b, g, N or a; used as:
smbclient \\server\share -TcxIXbgNa [ blocksize ] [
newer-file ] tarfile [ filenames.... ]
c Create a tar file on UNIX. Must be followed by the
name of a tar file, tape device or "-" for standard
output. (May be useful to set debugging low (-d0))
to avoid corrupting your tar file if using "-").
Mutually exclusive with the x flag.
x Extract (restore) a local tar file back to a
share. Unless the -D option is given, the tar files
will be restored from the top level of the share.
Must be followed by the name of the tar file, device
or "-" for standard input. Mutually exclusive with
the c flag.
I Include files and directories. Is the default
behaviour when filenames are specified above. Causes
tar files to be included in an extract or create
(and therefore everything else to be excluded). See
example below. Filename globbing does not work for
included files for extractions (yet).
X Exclude files and directories. Causes tar files to
be excluded from an extract or create. See example
below. Filename globbing does not work for excluded
files (yet).
b Blocksize. Must be followed by a valid (greater
than zero) blocksize. Causes tar file to be written
out in blocksize*TBLOCK (usually 512 byte) blocks.
g Incremental. Only back up files that have the
archive bit set. Useful only with the c flag.
N Newer than. Must be followed by the name of a file
whose date is compared against files found on the
share during a create. Only files newer than the
file specified are backed up to the tar file. Useful
only with the c flag.
a Set archive bit. Causes the archive bit to be
reset when a file is backed up. Useful with the g
(and c) flags.
Examples
smbclient \\mypc\myshare "" -N -Tx backup.tar
Restore from tar file backup.tar into myshare on
mypc (no password on share).
smbclient \\mypc\myshare "" -N -TXx backup.tar
users/docs
Restore everything except users/docs
smbclient \\mypc\myshare "" -N -Tc backup.tar
users/docs
Create a tar file of the files beneath users/docs.
-D initial directory
Change to initial directory before starting. Probably
only of any use with the tar (-T) option.
-c command string
command string is a semicolon separated list of com-
mands to be executed instead of prompting from stdin.
-N is implied by -c.
This is particularly useful in scripts and for printing
stdin to the server, e.g. -c 'print -'.
OPERATIONS
Once the client is running, the user is presented with a
prompt, "smb: \>". The backslash ("\") indicates the cur-
rent 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 (eg., "[parameter]")
are optional. If not given, the command will use suitable
defaults. Parameters shown in angle brackets (eg.,
"<parameter>") are required.
Note that all commands operating on the server are actu-
ally performed by issuing a request to the server. Thus
the behaviour may vary from server to server, depending on
how the server was implemented.
The commands available are given here in alphabetical
order.
?
Parameters:
[command]
Description:
If command is specified, the ? command will display
a brief informative message about the specified com-
mand.
If no command is specified, a list of available com-
mands will be displayed.
!
Parameters:
[shell command]
Description:
If shell command is specified, the ! command will
execute a shell locally and run the specified shell
command. If no command is specified, a shell will be
run.
cd
Parameters:
[directory name]
Description:
If directory name is specified, the current working
directory on the server will be changed to the
directory specified. This operation will fail if for
any reason the specified directory is inaccessible.
If no directory name is specified, the current work-
ing directory on the server will be reported.
del
Parameters:
<mask>
Description:
The client will request that the server attempt to
delete all files matching mask from the current
working directory on the server.
dir
Parameters:
<mask>
Description:
A list of the files matching mask in the current
working directory on the server will be retrieved
from the server and displayed.
exit
Parameters:
None.
Description:
Terminate the connection with the server and exit
from the program.
get
Parameters:
<remote file name> [local file name]
Description:
Copy the file called remote file name from the
server to the machine running the client. If speci-
fied, name the local copy local file name. Note
that all transfers in smbclient are binary. See also
the lowercase command.
help
Parameters:
[command]
Description:
See the ? command above.
lcd
Parameters:
[directory name]
Description:
If directory name is specified, the current working
directory on the local machine will be changed to
the directory specified. This operation will fail if
for any reason the specified directory is inaccessi-
ble.
If no directory name is specified, the name of the
current working directory on the local machine will
be reported.
lowercase
Parameters:
None.
Description:
Toggle lowercasing of filenames for the get and mget
commands.
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 file-
names are the norm on UNIX systems.
ls
Parameters:
<mask>
Description:
See the dir command above.
mask
Parameters:
<mask>
Description:
This command allows the user to set up a mask which
will be used during recursive operation of the mget
and mput commands.
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 mask command is neces-
sary 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 com-
mand 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 mask back to "*" after using the mget or
mput commands.
md
Parameters:
<directory name>
Description:
See the mkdir command.
mget
Parameters:
<mask>
Description:
Copy all files matching mask from the server to the
machine running the client.
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 smbclient
are binary. See also the lowercase command.
mkdir
Parameters:
<directory name>
Description:
Create a new directory on the server (user access
privileges permitting) with the specified name.
mput
Parameters:
<mask>
Description:
Copy all files matching mask in the current working
directory on the local machine to the current work-
ing directory on the server.
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 smbclient
are binary.
print
Parameters:
<file name>
Description:
Print the specified file from the local machine
through a printable service on the server.
See also the printmode command.
printmode
Parameters:
<graphics or text>
Description:
Set the print mode to suit either binary data (such
as graphical information) or text. Subsequent print
commands will use the currently set print mode.
prompt
Parameters:
None.
Description:
Toggle prompting for filenames during operation of
the mget and mput commands.
When toggled ON, the user will be prompted to con-
firm the transfer of each file during these com-
mands. When toggled OFF, all specified files will be
transferred without prompting.
put
Parameters:
<local file name> [remote file name]
Description:
Copy the file called local file name from the
machine running the client to the server. If speci-
fied, name the remote copy remote file name. Note
that all transfers in smbclient are binary. See also
the lowercase command.
queue
Parameters:
None.
Description:
Displays the print queue, showing the job id, name,
size and current status.
quit
Parameters:
None.
Description:
See the exit command.
rd
Parameters:
<directory name>
Description:
See the rmdir command.
recurse
Parameters:
None.
Description:
Toggle directory recursion for the commands mget and
mput.
When toggled ON, these commands will process all
directories in the source directory (i.e., the
directory they are copying from) and will recurse
into any that match the mask specified to the com-
mand. 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 com-
mands will be copied, and any mask specified using
the mask command will be ignored.
rm
Parameters:
<mask>
Description:
Remove all files matching mask from the current
working directory on the server.
rmdir
Parameters:
<directory name>
Description:
Remove the specified directory (user access privi-
leges permitting) from the server.
tar
Parameters:
<c|x>[IXbgNa]
Description:
Performs a tar operation - see the -T command line
option above. Behaviour may be affected by the
tarmode command (see below). Using g (incremental)
and N (newer) will affect tarmode settings. Note
that using the "-" option with tar x may not work -
use the command line option instead.
blocksize
Parameters
<blocksize>
Description
Blocksize. Must be followed by a valid (greater than
zero) blocksize. Causes tar file to be written out
in blocksize*TBLOCK (usually 512 byte) blocks.
tarmode
Parameters
<full|inc|reset|noreset>
Description
Changes tar's behaviour with regard to archive bits.
In full mode, tar will back up everything regardless
of the archive bit setting (this is the default
mode). In incremental mode, tar will only back up
files with the archive bit set. In reset mode, tar
will reset the archive bit on all files it backs up
(implies read/write share).
setmode
Parameters
<filename> <perm=[+|-]rsha>
Description
A version of the DOS attrib command to set file per-
missions. For example,
setmode myfile +r
would make myfile read only.
NOTES
Some servers are fussy about the case of supplied user-
names, 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 sup-
ports the LANMAN2 protocol.
FILES
Not applicable.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
USER
The variable USER may contain the username of the per-
son using the client. This information is used only if
the protocol level is high enough to support session-
level passwords.
INSTALLATION
The location of the client program is a matter for indi-
vidual system administrators. The following are thus sug-
gestions only.
It is recommended that the client software be installed
under the /usr/local/samba hierarchy, in a directory read-
able 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 writable only by the user.
To test the client, you will need to know the name of a
running Lan manager server. It is possible to run smbd
(see smbd(8)) as 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.
VERSION
This man page is (mostly) correct for version 1.9.00 of
the Samba suite, plus some of the recent patches to it.
These notes will necessarily lag behind development of the
client software, so it is possible that your version of
the client has extensions or parameter semantics that dif-
fer from or are not covered by this man page. Please
notify these to the address below for rectification.
SEE ALSO
smbd(8)
DIAGNOSTICS
[This section under construction]
Most diagnostics issued by the client are logged in a
specified log file. The log file name is specified at com-
pile 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.
Most messages are reasonably self-explanatory.
Unfortunately, at time of creation of this man page the
source code is still too fluid to warrant describing each
and every diagnostic. At this stage your best bet is still
to grep the source code and inspect the conditions that
gave rise to the diagnostics you are seeing.
BUGS
None known.
CREDITS
The original Samba software and related utilities were
created by Andrew Tridgell samba-bugs@samba.anu.edu.au.
Andrew is also the Keeper of the Source for this project.
See smb.conf(5) for a full list of contributors and
details on how to submit bug reports, comments etc.