Samba is a software package that enables Linux clients to connect to the network resources (such as file shares and printers on a network) with the computers that use the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. The Samba software package contains a variety of daemon processes, administrative tools, user tools, and configuration files. Linux saves the Samba configuration in the /etc/samba/smb.conf file. To start the server, you need to run nmbd and smbd with the following arguments, where smb_config_file is the full path of your smb.conf file:

nmbd -D -s smb_config_file
smbd -D -s smb_config_file
The nmbd daemon is a NetBIOS name server, and smbd does the actual work of handling share requests. The -D option specifies daemon mode. If you alter the smb.conf file while smbd is running, notify the daemon of the changes with a HUP signal.