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 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.
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.
password
There is no default password. If no password is supplied 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, 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.
-A
-L
smbclient -L ftp -I ftp.microsoft.com
will list the shares available on Microsoft's public server.
-M
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 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 messages.
-E
By default, the client writes messages to standard output - typically the user's tty.
-I IP number
Normally the client will attempt to locate the specified 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 specified IP number.
There is no default for this parameter. If not supplied, it will be determined automatically by the client as described above.
-N
Unless a password is specified on the command line or this parameter is specified, the client will request a password.
-O socket options
-P
By default, services will be connected to as NON-printer services.
-U username
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 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.
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
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.
-l log basename
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.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
-W workgroup
-p port number
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.... ]
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
This is particularly useful in scripts and for printing stdin to the server, e.g. -c 'print -'.
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 actually 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.
?
If no command is specified, a list of available commands will be displayed.
!
cd
If no directory name is specified, the current working directory on the server will be reported.
del
dir
exit
get
help
lcd
If no directory name is specified, the name of the current working directory on the local machine will be reported.
lowercase
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.
ls
mask
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 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 mask back to "*" after using the mget or mput commands.
md
mget
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
mput
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 printmode command.
printmode
prompt
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.
put
queue
quit
rd
recurse
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 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.
rm
rmdir
tar
blocksize
tarmode
setmode
setmode myfile +r
would make myfile read only.
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.
It is recommended that the client software be installed under the /usr/local/samba hierarchy, in a 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 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.
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.
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.
See smb.conf(5) for a full list of contributors and details on how to submit bug reports, comments etc.