SWAT is the Samba Web Administration Tool, a program that can be used to administer samba via a web browser. Swat runs on it's own port and functions as a small web server. It does not have SSL capabilities. At the very least, you should limit who can connect with tcpwrappers. If you wish to use SSL, I would suggest installing webmin instead.
To use SWAT, you must add the following entry to /etc/services:
swat 901/tcp
You'll also need to add the following to /etc/inetd.conf
swat stream tcp nowait.400 root /usr/local/samba/bin/swat swat
Be sure to substitute /usr/local/samba/bin/swat with the actual path if you install samba in a different location. Now restart inetd and you may access SWAT by pointing your web browser at http://host:901.
Samba can be started by manually running the smbd and nmbd daemons in the samba bin directory. Below is the init.d script I use to start and stop samba
#!/bin/sh
#
# chkconfig: 345 91 35
# description: Starts and stops the Samba smbd and nmbd daemons \
# used to provide SMB network services.
# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
# Source networking configuration.
. /etc/sysconfig/network
# Check that networking is up.
[ ${NETWORKING} = "no" ] && exit 0
# Check that smb.conf exists.
[ -f /etc/smb.conf ] || exit 0
# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
start)
echo -n "Starting SMB services: "
daemon smbd -D
echo
echo -n "Starting NMB services: "
daemon nmbd -D
echo
touch /var/lock/subsys/smb
;;
stop)
echo -n "Shutting down SMB services: "
killproc smbd
echo
echo -n "Shutting down NMB services: "
killproc nmbd
rm -f /var/lock/subsys/smb
echo ""
;;
restart)
echo -n "Restarting SMB services: "
killproc smbd -HUP
echo
echo -n "Restarting NMB services: "
killproc nmbd -HUP
echo
;;
status)
status smbd
status nmbd
;;
*)
echo "Usage: smb {start|stop|restart|status}"
exit 1
esac
On systems with chkconfig, simply call this file smb and stick it in /etc/rc.d/init.d. Then at the command line type chkconfig -a smb and it will be setup to start at boot.