I'm dead new to the forum and I'm probably going over well-trodden ground, but if you can refer me to the oracle's den I'd be more than grateful.
What is the simplest way of making Windows files directly accessible to unix? In layman's terms I mean I would love to be able to log into the unix system and type 'cat windows file' or 'cp unixfile windowsfile'

I have pored through Samba, and it seems to be tilted the other way, ie allows the windows user to access data on the unix box.

I have looked at sharity.

Can you save me a long lonesome trek in the jungle and point me to the clearing. Thanks a pile

samba

You can use samba as Norsk suggested - it works both ways. You can use smbclient to mount a windows drive into the *nix filesystem, or use an FTP-like interface. There are lots of GUI tools to simplify this (smb4k is one of them). It is the equivalent of "Mapping a network drive" under Windows.

e.g. to mount a Windows C$ share
smbmount //mywinserver/c\$ /mnt/win_c

Note that you have to "reverse" the slashes (windows uses backslashes, but in our *nix world this escapes stuff!)

You can google for everything mentioned here.

Cheers
ZB

Many thanks guys, it's just good to know which path to set out on through the jungle!