What to use instead of Samba?

[Alex Dean]

If you want 'easy Samba', why not try SWAT?  Web-based Samba  
configuration...  Makes basic tasks very simple.  I'm not sure if it  
would help with your iptables problem (I don't know anything about  
iptables), but it makes it easy to avoid typos in config files and  
other annoying errors.    http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba- 
HOWTO-Collection/SWAT.html  On Debian, you can 'apt-get install swat'  
and you're set.  (Well, you also have to enable it in inetd, but that  
takes 5 seconds.)

It sounds like you've been wrestling with this long enough that you  
might be more comfortable with the Samba config files than I am, so  
please disregard this idea if so.

alex