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Our local network server is running Windows Server 2008 and most of clients are XP machines. (except me that am an Ubuntu guy :) Currently I installed samba-client and can share my files on the network. Is it possible to configure an Ubuntu Server as a Windows network server? If possible I would like to replace our Windows Server with Ubuntu. It should be able to manage directory access and workgroups as like as windows server.

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Are you using Active Directory on windows? Getting a workgroup/file shares setup is very simple with samba. Replacing Active Directory is another story and I don't know the answer to that one.. but I'd be interested to hear it. – user606723 Aug 11 '11 at 14:06
Yes. we use acrive directory. In fact I want to use same machine as a server for file sharing between windows/linux/mac users, and a dns web server. Currently there are 19 computers using the windows server and there is a web server with a running Ubuntu server 11.04 that no computer connects to it. I would like to combine them... that one machine serves the both local network and internet service. – sorush-r Aug 11 '11 at 14:15
Hmm... This seems to be the answer: reallylinux.com/docs/sambaserver.shtml – sorush-r Aug 11 '11 at 14:23

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You can install Samba, a system that can share directories, printers and CDROM/DVDROM. Samba can even replace Active Directory, so your other computer users can authenticate on it. You can setup Samba so you have a public, freely available directory, have user-based home directories and shared directories, where the rights are based on their Linux credentials.

The main configuration file is smb.conf, which is usually located under /etc/samba, at least under Ubuntu. You can also use something like Webmin to manage your Samba configurations and shares from a web-based interface, instead of manually editing configuration files.

If you search on the net, you will find tons of free documentation on SAMBA.

You mainly have to install samba itself. enter the command: 

sudo apt-get install samba-server
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Would just like to note that samba conf files aren't scary. I would recommend manually editing them. – user606723 Aug 11 '11 at 14:43

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