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I have different Windows and Linux machines that share an internal private network. From within this network I can SSH to every machine etc. This internal network works great.

I have my main windows machine from where I control these machines either trough SSH or virtual desktop.

Is there a way for me on my main machine to see all the machines that are connected to the network. I want to be able to see all the machines and maybe browse them, share files etc. I am very new to networking of this kind so any recommendations are welcome.

Should I set up this network by workgroup? I do not think Linux supports that. Or should I set up the network with domain, I never did that before.

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"workgroup" and "domain" are terms from "Windows Networking" aka SMB. linux accesses Windows Networks with a software package called Samba, which is very capable of handling workgroups or domains. –  quack quixote Apr 21 '10 at 8:12
Ah I see so that's samba. Thank you I have read it but never understood what it was. I will Google further, thanks! –  Saif Bechan Apr 21 '10 at 8:31

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One easy way to see the machines on your network, if it is all DHCP-based, is to look at the status of your router. You should also be able to browse the network from Linux. Under Ubuntu, you can look at the Places menu. Under this, you should see an option for Windows network, or something like that. This should let you browse the other Windows machines.


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Thank you for your suggestions, I think the router would be a solution for me. As for the places menu, I have only one machine with a GUI, that is CentOS. I can see the nautilus network explorer, but I can not see the option of windows machines. Is there something I need to do to enable them? –  Saif Bechan Apr 21 '10 at 14:17

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