Setting up Samba?

Threepwood

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Been trying to set up samba so I can have shares to my windows machine.

I have followed this guid to the T, http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/install-samba-server-on-ubuntu/, but it's not working right. I thought it strange that it asks to set the password before making a user in that file, but I don't know if that's right or not.

Also
<username> = "<username>"
is confusing me, should the user name be written between the <>, as in say:

<user> = "<user>", or like this, user = "user"
i think the latter is the right one?

On this guide,http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/SAMBA_Filesharing, it has a mention of something else I haven't tried yet,

Andrew adds: "You may have problems accessing your share from other computers afterwards. To fix this issue do the following things. Launch the run dialog by pressing Alt+F2. Enter the command gksudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf then enter your password when prompted. Find the security section of the configuration file. Change "user" to "share" and remove the semicolon from the start of the line. Find the guest account section. Change "nobody" to your account's username and remove the semi colon from the start of the line. Save the file and restart your computer"

Is this going to help my problem which is that, I can see the shares from Windows, but cannot access them, it gives an access denied error as far as I can remember.
 
Do you have user rights setup for Windows shares?

If not the there is n o configuration necessary, just install it and it should work.
 
the correct syntax is:
user = "andres101"

you could try swat, which is a graphical configuration tool for samba. I haven't used it myself.

you need to add a system user that has access to the directory on the filesystem and a samba user with the same username. samba will automatically map the samba user to the system account with the same username.

Code:
smbpasswd -a andres101
useradd -m andres101

There is no need to restart you machine, just restart the samba service:
Code:
/etc/init.d/samba restart

make sure the following is set in the configuration file:
Code:
hosts allow = 192.168.0.		#replace with your subnet
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
interfaces = 192.168.0.1/24	       #replace with your ip

Example of temp share
Code:
[Temp]
 comment = Temporary Space
 path = /tmp/
 valid users = andres101
 public = no
 writeable = yes
 
If you can see it but now access it you have permission problems. As sugested above. give share permisions.
 
I seem to have made it worse now.

I did this,

useradd -m username
smbpasswd -a username

Which worked, apparently. It said user created or something.

But now I can still see the xubuntu machine from windows on my network, but when I try to browse the machine I just get:

"...not accessible. You might not have permission to use the network resource...The network path was not found."

Which is similar to what I was getting before, but then I was still getting into the machine and seeing the shared folders, just not able to access them. Now I can't even get into the machine.

hosts allow = 192.168.0. #replace with your subnet
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
interfaces = 192.168.0.1/24 #replace with your ip

In which configuration file? There's nothing like that in smb.conf if that's what you mean and I don't see any obvious lace to put it.

How do I set up user rights for windows shares?

Maybe this has something to do with how I configured my network? I just used network connections at the top right of the screen, added a wired network, with a static ip and the gateway/dns set to my router. I had to copy the MAC address from the "Auto ETH" connection to get it to work.

Previously I just edited Auto ETH but after restarting the changes do not hold for some reason. Anyway the internet works like this.

I don't understand why this has to be such a mission, a while ago I tried a livecd of ubuntu 6.06 and I could browse my windows network fine without doing anything, not the same thing as setting up shares I know and not to steal focus from my initial probelm but how do I browse shares on my Windows machines on xubuntu?

With the ubuntu livecd I mentioned there was a network connections thing in the file system explorer thing, there is nothing there in xubuntu?
 
Okay that thing looks interesting, I more want to browse my Linux box from windwos ATM though.

Ja, I know the sig is arb, but I think what I'm referring to will be understood by those I want to see it, maybe. :p
 
I tried some more messing around.

The only place I could see that those lines might go is in the networking section of smb.conf.

hosts allow = 192.168.0. #replace with your subnet
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
interfaces = 192.168.0.1/24 #replace with your ip

When I have the hosts allow line I get the access denied message from windows, without it but with the interfaces line I get a password screen in windows, but I enter the user I created in ubuntu and the password nothing happens. I can click ok a billion times it just keeps coming back up and not showing me the shares, I think the same thing is happening without the interfaces line also, hard to remember.

I have no /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd file, nor do I have the /etc/samba/private/ dir on the drive, should I have that?

I also went into the users settings in ubuntu and in the newly created users profile I enabled allow the user to connect to networks and allow the user to share files folders. I thought that was going to be the miracle cure but it's not.
 
Well is that the likely cause of it not working?

I would have thought something would create the file for me, but I have no idea what.

This is really irritatingly complex, seeing as lots of people use windows, I would have thought they'd have made it easy to do this by now.
 
How does your entire /etc/samba/smb.conf looks like?

It seems everything is fine but no shares are created, if you post the entire file then we could have a look and see if something is amiss.

Here is mine, it is a very simple setup, no need for samba passwords and whatnot:
Code:
[global]

workgroup = MSHOME
netbios name = GENTOO
server string = Lets dance samba
printcap name = cups
security = share
local master = no

[your username]
comment = shared
path = /home/myhome/
guest ok = yes
browsable = yes

But you did not answer my original question, must there be per user access to the shares or can it be open share across the entire network like mine?
 
Will have to post the smb.conf later that machine is not available now.

Shares are created, I did that using the shared folders thingy under one of the menus.

I can see the shares from windows (sometimes anyway), just not access them.

I'd rather make it so that I can access it only with a password or something, so that other PCs can't enter the shares whenever.
 
Okay here it is, it was too long so I split it in two;

#======================= Global Settings =======================

[global]

## Browsing/Identification ###

# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
workgroup = WORKGROUP

# server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field
server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)

# Windows Internet Name Serving Support Section:
# WINS Support - Tells the NMBD component of Samba to enable its WINS Server
# wins support = no

# WINS Server - Tells the NMBD components of Samba to be a WINS Client
# Note: Samba can be either a WINS Server, or a WINS Client, but NOT both
; wins server = w.x.y.z

# This will prevent nmbd to search for NetBIOS names through DNS.
dns proxy = no

# What naming service and in what order should we use to resolve host names
# to IP addresses
; name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast

#### Networking ####

# The specific set of interfaces / networks to bind to
# This can be either the interface name or an IP address/netmask;
# interface names are normally preferred
; hosts allow = 255.255.255.0
; smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
interfaces = 192.168.192.6/24 eth0

# Only bind to the named interfaces and/or networks; you must use the
# 'interfaces' option above to use this.
# It is recommended that you enable this feature if your Samba machine is
# not protected by a firewall or is a firewall itself. However, this
# option cannot handle dynamic or non-broadcast interfaces correctly.
; bind interfaces only = yes



#### Debugging/Accounting ####

# This tells Samba to use a separate log file for each machine
# that connects
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m

# Cap the size of the individual log files (in KiB).
max log size = 1000

# If you want Samba to only log through syslog then set the following
# parameter to 'yes'.
# syslog only = no

# We want Samba to log a minimum amount of information to syslog. Everything
# should go to /var/log/samba/log.{smbd,nmbd} instead. If you want to log
# through syslog you should set the following parameter to something higher.
syslog = 0

# Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace
panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d


####### Authentication #######

# "security = user" is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account
# in this server for every user accessing the server. See
# /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/ServerType.html
# in the samba-doc package for details.
security = user
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers

# You may wish to use password encryption. See the section on
# 'encrypt passwords' in the smb.conf(5) manpage before enabling.
encrypt passwords = true

# If you are using encrypted passwords, Samba will need to know what
# password database type you are using.
passdb backend = tdbsam

obey pam restrictions = yes

# This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to sync the Unix
# password with the SMB password when the encrypted SMB password in the
# passdb is changed.
unix password sync = yes

# For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following
# parameters must be set (thanks to Ian Kahan <<[email protected]> for
# sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Sarge).
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .

# This boolean controls whether PAM will be used for password changes
# when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in
# 'passwd program'. The default is 'no'.
pam password change = yes

# This option controls how unsuccessful authentication attempts are mapped
# to anonymous connections
map to guest = bad user

########## Domains ###########

# Is this machine able to authenticate users. Both PDC and BDC
# must have this setting enabled. If you are the BDC you must
# change the 'domain master' setting to no
#
; domain logons = yes
#
# The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set
# It specifies the location of the user's profile directory
# from the client point of view)
# The following required a [profiles] share to be setup on the
# samba server (see below)
; logon path = \\%N\profiles\%U
# Another common choice is storing the profile in the user's home directory
# (this is Samba's default)
# logon path = \\%N\%U\profile

# The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set
# It specifies the location of a user's home directory (from the client
# point of view)
; logon drive = H:
# logon home = \\%N\%U

# The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set
# It specifies the script to run during logon. The script must be stored
# in the [netlogon] share
# NOTE: Must be store in 'DOS' file format convention
; logon script = logon.cmd

# This allows Unix users to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR
# RPC pipe. The example command creates a user account with a disabled Unix
# password; please adapt to your needs
; add user script = /usr/sbin/adduser --quiet --disabled-password --gecos "" %u
 
Continued...
########## Printing ##########

# If you want to automatically load your printer list rather
# than setting them up individually then you'll need this
# load printers = yes

# lpr(ng) printing. You may wish to override the location of the
# printcap file
; printing = bsd
; printcap name = /etc/printcap

# CUPS printing. See also the cupsaddsmb(8) manpage in the
# cupsys-client package.
; printing = cups
; printcap name = cups

############ Misc ############

# Using the following line enables you to customise your configuration
# on a per machine basis. The %m gets replaced with the netbios name
# of the machine that is connecting
; include = /home/samba/etc/smb.conf.%m

# Most people will find that this option gives better performance.
# See smb.conf(5) and /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/speed.html
# for details
# You may want to add the following on a Linux system:
# SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
# socket options = TCP_NODELAY

# The following parameter is useful only if you have the linpopup package
# installed. The samba maintainer and the linpopup maintainer are
# working to ease installation and configuration of linpopup and samba.
; message command = /bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/linpopup "%f" "%m" %s; rm %s' &

# Domain Master specifies Samba to be the Domain Master Browser. If this
# machine will be configured as a BDC (a secondary logon server), you
# must set this to 'no'; otherwise, the default behavior is recommended.
# domain master = auto

# Some defaults for winbind (make sure you're not using the ranges
# for something else.)
; idmap uid = 10000-20000
; idmap gid = 10000-20000
; template shell = /bin/bash

# The following was the default behaviour in sarge,
# but samba upstream reverted the default because it might induce
# performance issues in large organizations.
# See Debian bug #368251 for some of the consequences of *not*
# having this setting and smb.conf(5) for details.
; winbind enum groups = yes
; winbind enum users = yes

# Setup usershare options to enable non-root users to share folders
# with the net usershare command.

# Maximum number of usershare. 0 (default) means that usershare is disabled.
; usershare max shares = 100

# Allow users who've been granted usershare privileges to create
# public shares, not just authenticated ones
usershare allow guests = yes

#======================= Share Definitions =======================

# Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit)
# to enable the default home directory shares. This will share each
# user's home directory as \\server\username
;[homes]
; comment = Home Directories
; browseable = no

# By default, the home directories are exported read-only. Change the
# next parameter to 'no' if you want to be able to write to them.
; read only = yes

# File creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to
# create files with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775.
; create mask = 0700

# Directory creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to
# create dirs. with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775.
; directory mask = 0700

# By default, \\server\username shares can be connected to by anyone
# with access to the samba server. Un-comment the following parameter
# to make sure that only "username" can connect to \\server\username
# This might need tweaking when using external authentication schemes
; valid users = %S

# Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons
# (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.)
;[netlogon]
; comment = Network Logon Service
; path = /home/samba/netlogon
; guest ok = yes
; read only = yes
; share modes = no

# Un-comment the following and create the profiles directory to store
# users profiles (see the "logon path" option above)
# (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.)
# The path below should be writable by all users so that their
# profile directory may be created the first time they log on
;[profiles]
; comment = Users profiles
; path = /home/samba/profiles
; guest ok = no
; browseable = no
; create mask = 0600
; directory mask = 0700

wins support = no
[printers]
comment = All Printers
browseable = no
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = yes
guest ok = no
read only = yes
create mask = 0700

# Windows clients look for this share name as a source of downloadable
# printer drivers
[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /var/lib/samba/printers
browseable = yes
read only = yes
guest ok = no
# Uncomment to allow remote administration of Windows print drivers.
# Replace 'ntadmin' with the name of the group your admin users are
# members of.
; write list = root, @ntadmin

# A sample share for sharing your CD-ROM with others.
;[cdrom]
; comment = Samba server's CD-ROM
; read only = yes
; locking = no
; path = /cdrom
; guest ok = yes

# The next two parameters show how to auto-mount a CD-ROM when the
# cdrom share is accesed. For this to work /etc/fstab must contain
# an entry like this:
#
# /dev/scd0 /cdrom iso9660 defaults,noauto,ro,user 0 0
#
# The CD-ROM gets unmounted automatically after the connection to the
#
# If you don't want to use auto-mounting/unmounting make sure the CD
# is mounted on /cdrom
#
; preexec = /bin/mount /cdrom
; postexec = /bin/umount /cdrom

[data01]
path = /data01
available = yes
browsable = yes
public = yes
writable = no

[data02]
path = /data02
available = yes
browsable = yes
public = yes
writable = no

[dump]
path = /data02/dump
available = yes
browsable = yes
public = yes
writable = yes
 
I changed some stuff under networking, don't now whether I made it worse or not, you'll have to tell me if it looks funky or not.

Please help.:p
 
you realise that you have only posted symptoms but no log entries... check your log files!

you have no "valid users" in your shares. not sure what samba defaults to, but my guess is that it will default to the most secure settings, meaning no access.

remember to restart samba after making changes.

did you set the samba user password?
smbpasswd andres101
 
Umm, okay where are the log files? Hopefully in the /etc/samba dir or something I guess.

I did that password thing, but I'm not sure if I did it right.

I did restart after most changes I'm sure.

I consider myself to have at least moderate knowledge of PCs, but this linux stuff is confusing the hell out me. :p I'm totally flying blind here.
 
have you tried installing webmin and using that to set up Samba and anyother issues you have ? Have a look at it it is rather helpful. Or install Mandriva and it has a nice wizard for us not so clever linux people :)
 
Umm, okay where are the log files? Hopefully in the /etc/samba dir or something I guess.

I did that password thing, but I'm not sure if I did it right.

I did restart after most changes I'm sure.

I consider myself to have at least moderate knowledge of PCs, but this linux stuff is confusing the hell out me. :p I'm totally flying blind here.

If your PC keeps the locatedb up-to-date then you can find log.smbd with 'locate log.smbd'. It's handy to "tail -f" a logfile in an xterm/console while debugging issues with samba, or any network service for that matter:
Code:
tail -f /var/log/samba/log.smbd

Use the location of the samba logfile for your distro.

The samba user you added is visibile in plain text in /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd (the actual password is in the hashed secrets.tdb file).

Note that the users in this smbpasswd file have UIDs that should match actual users in /etc/passwd. Here's an example from my setup (this is a "shared" security setup):
Code:
cat /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd 
smb:66:AAD3B435B51404EEAAD3B435B51404EE:31D6CFE0D16AE931B73C59D7E0C089C0:[U          ]:LCT-43743CAA:

Here is the corresponding entry in /etc/passwd:
Code:
grep smb /etc/passwd
smb:x:66:66:Samba user:/var/log/samba:/bin/false
 
Last edited:
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