Unable to see windows shares in ubuntu / linux

Often people end up trying to look for samba in search terms in order to resolve an issue with linux unable to find windows shared folders on the network.

The answers in not samba but wins.
Wins allows you to resolves windows domain names ....

wins is not enabled as a host resolution mechanism in /etc/nsswitch.conf;

Step 1: install wins
sudo apt-get install winbind


Step 2: Enasble wins in nsswitch.conf and ensure the hosts you are adding wins (The order matters depending on the server & network setup ).
This is an example of what it might look like
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] wins dns


Step 3: Restart the network service
sudo service networking restart


Thats all there is to it....

Social Engineering Beware

Today I got a call from an unknown number
361-597-301

The IVR system said, that they have tried contacting me multiple time by mail.
It also said that they will close the account if I donot respond back.

Naturally I pressed 1 on the keypad to figure out what was wrong.
A guy picked and asked about my visa card details.
I asked which bank he was calling from and he hung up.

I tried calling back and it was an invalid number.

Imagine had I not asked the number he could have easily even tried to ask my credit card number for any of the popular banks and I probably would have complied.


Despite knowing that social engineering calls are growing in number, I almost fell for it.

My advice :- if you have not initiated the call to a bank yourself, do your best to verify that it is an agent at the bank.
You could even try telling him the wrong account number/ pin at first to verify if he is at the system.


All in all I am writing this post for you guys to read and also for google to crawl and spread the news to anyone else interested...