Consider installing RetroNAS, or even just look into how it configures its Samba install.

"RetroNAS configures Samba to dynamically support the oldest versions of the protocol right through to newer versions. This happens automatically when the client asks to connect to the Samba server, and the protocol versions are negotiated."

https://github.com/danmons/retronas/wiki/Samba

I have similar problem with win95 and synology NAS.
works fine with nt4, but win95 sees the network storage, the volume, but cannot authenticate.
Anyone figured it out ?

https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/current/man- … smb.conf.5.html

BSD/LINUX
Setup a username and password (max 14 characters) on the host and grant it permission to the share(s).
Enable NetBIOS on the host.

SMB4.conf
*The below will likely require the extensions be installed on 9x unless you enable LANMAN. You can likely force NTLMv2 if all you need is 9x+/NT4.
*Try to at least use NTLMV2 and require it if you can.

netbios name = xxxxx (Put the Linux computer name here)
client ntlm auth = yes
client ntlmv2 auth = No (Set to Yes to require ntlmv2)
ntlm auth = yes (This is actually "ntlmv1-permitted". ntlmv2-only will probably work.)
restrict anonymous = 2 (NOT recommended but try 1 if you don't want authentication. Share permissions would still need to be set)
server min protocol = NT1 (Works for 9x/NT4. Set to CORE for DOS)
lanman auth = no (Set to YES if you want to use LANMAN. Make sure ntlm auth = yes or ntlmv1-permitted if you want to use NTLM. Not necessary for 9x/NT4 if extensions use)
client lanman auth = no (Set to YES if you want to use LANMAN. Not necessary for 9x/NT4 if extensions used)
unix extensions = no

TRUENAS CORE SMB4.CONF
*The below is all configured through the GUI and allows 9x/NT4 and above. For 9x the client extensions are required.

unix extensions = no
netbios name = truenasserver
client ntlmv2 auth = No
ntlm auth = Yes
restrict anonymous = 2
server min protocol = NT1

9x CLIENT OS
Logon to Windows with the username and password (max 14 characters) you created on the server
Install the "Active Directory Client Extensions" for NTLMv2 support, if not enable LANMAN

Verify the following registry entries

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\LSA]
"LMCompatibility"=dword:00000003

NT CLIENT OS

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa]
"lmcompatibilitylevel"=dword:00000005

Thanks all for the quick answers, this looks like a very responsive site 😀

Pierre32, yes, RetroNAS was an option I considered but have not tried yet, as I only need Samba (my other retro devices are working fine with FTP), and was not feeling to far from having Samba working.

DosFreak, thanks for the details. Lots of settings and Win98 extensions I've already played with, but probably not in the good combination. I'll follow your setups and let you know of my results 😀 !

About RetroNAS : my unsderstanding is that it sets up a Linux server configuration that should fit most old client systems ? Does it also give diagnosis or instructions on the manual setup you have to perform on the clients side (like installing extensions or tweaking registry) ? Would it work with a fresh Win98 installation ?

Aaaaand it finally works 😀

I still had to do some tweakings before, here's my smb.conf (so for ArchLinux 254.5-1-arch, kernel 6.2.10-1-aarch64-ARCH in my case):

1   workgroup = WORKGROUP
2   netbios name = NAS
3   client ntlmv2 auth = Yes
4   ntlm auth = yes
5   restrict anonymous = 2
6   server min protocol = NT1
7   lanman auth = no
8   unix extensions = no

For now I have no password required (I remember I gave up on having WIndows 10 requring password too).

Some notes from my eperience here:

• It looks like enabling DNS on the Win98 side helped.
• During my tweakings, I also validated again the "WORKGROUP" setting again on Win98 (which lead to some "installation process" requring the Win98 installation CD). I also added the workgroup = WORKGROUP line in my smb.conf.

I'll see if I can improve security a bit with password, but anyway, I'm super happy with what I already have 😀

Thanks a lot DosFreak and Pierre32 !

A bit off-topic: DosFreak, you mentionned Samba share could work on DOS (with "CORE" protocol) ?

My Win98 machine offers to boot either in Win98 or in different DOS modes depending on the games to launch. All my games are stored on partition D: (and I used Win98 to updated them).

Would it be possible to launch the DOS games from a Samba shared drive directly ? I guess this implies installing a DOS driver for the network card, and maybe won't be compatible with games having big memory requirements ?

Louthrax wrote on 2023-12-10, 21:40:

Would it be possible to launch the DOS games from a Samba shared drive directly ? I guess this implies installing a DOS driver for the network card, and maybe won't be compatible with games having big memory requirements ?

Yes, it's perfectly possible, using Microsoft Network Client 3.0 for DOS.
And yes, it does occupy a lot of RAM, which often causes problems.
See also: NAS for retro stuff

Thanks for the confirmation Grzyb.

I think I'll stay on what I have then. Updating my D: drive from Win98 is quite easy now that I have Samba working.

But I still like the idea, just for the retro-fun of it ! Maybe I'll give it a try anyway (that would also allow to have the games' saves directly on the NAS without having to manually backup them).

Last small issue when finalizing my Samba setup : I created a new user ("nas") to match my NAS user ("nas" also), for simplicity sake. I then delete my default user "Laurent", (doing that from my new "nas" account). Everything was looking well, until I rebooted Win98 : the default user "Laurent" was still present, and was the default login choice! Maybe I should have simply renamed "Laurent" to "nas". In the worst case I'll simply add a new "Laurent" user on my NAS.