HOWTO: Setup Samba peer-to-peer with Windows

[Flavian]

Thank you very much, Storm for your nice and easy to follow answer!
You said that I should not use German Umlauts, yepp I would love not to do so Since it's an annoying pain, BUT I read in your first post that one should use the exact same user name and password as used for the Windows Box.
Since I was so smart to put Hans-Jörg there, I thought it might not work out with the user / password checking.

If all else fails I would have to change the windows install on my Dad's laptop I suppose

Thank you very much for your help again.
Flo

[Stormbringer]

You said that I should not use German Umlauts, yepp I would love not to do so Since it's an annoying pain, BUT I read in your first post that one should use the exact same user name and password as used for the Windows Box.
Since I was so smart to put Hans-Jörg there, I thought it might not work out with the user / password checking.

Alright, if you already have the user account on your dad's Windows laptop then simply leave it as it is to spare you the hassle of reconfiguring the whole stuff.

Glad I could be of help once more.

Cheers,
Storm

[Flavian]

One more little question left (sorry to bug you with that, but I am a real newbie to Linux :/ )

What do I do when I want to have

Lukas: read/write
Florian: read/write
Hans-Jörg: ONLY READ permissions

on [Data] ?

Thanks in advance.

Flo

[Stormbringer]

What do I do when I want to have

Lukas: read/write
Florian: read/write
Hans-Jörg: ONLY READ permissions

on [Data] ?

Uh, it starts to get tricky ... that's an option I never had to implement (not even in a corpoprate server setup) ... hmm ...

Try it that way (but write down the current mode and ownership in case it breaks something really badly):

sudo chmod 0774 /media/hdb1
sudo chown florian.lukas /media/hdb1

To my knowledge it should give "others" read-only rights ... not really sure if samba will honor that.

[andho]

gud day and amazing how-to stormbringer.
i read through this thread and cudnt figure out how to access my windows shares from the ubuntu box.
ps. i can access the ubuntu shares from the windows box.

[stig]

Stormbringer, this is a brilliant howto guide and you have solved a lot of individual problems in the thread. I have had problems trying to set up a network for ages, so I decided to follow your howto instructions. But I have one last problem as shown below.

I have two Ubuntu 6.06 PCs and one Windows 98 behind a broadband NAT router, connected by cable and using DHCP. The Windows PC does not use any passwords. One Ubuntu box is used by me and the other by my wife. We use them for our home business and our leisure. My objective is to be able to copy files from one box to another so that we can back-up and transfer files to each other’s box.

I followed your instructions carefully on both Ubuntu PCs making identical smb.conf files, except for the netbios name = where I have used the individual computer name (ubuntu1 and ubuntu2), and the force user and force group which have the respective user (me on ubuntu1 and wife on ubuntu2). They have the same workgroup name, mshome. Wins support is set to “no” because I am on DHCP. I set up a home/samba folder on each box and did the permissions as you instructed.

Then I made the PC user a samba user and set the passwords as the ubuntu logon password - so my ubuntu box has me as a samba user with my password, and my wife’s box has her. I found that this allowed me to access the shared “samba” folder on my wife’s box but only using her login name and password (and vice versa for the other box). So I set each of us as a system user and samba user on the other box (as in your “mark” example) - I made my wife a user on my box and me a user on hers. This then allowed me to access the shared samba folder on her box using my name and password. I checked that I could copy files into the folders - i.e. between ubuntu boxes. And this works. So far so good!

But I cannot access the ubuntu folders from Windows. In Network Neighbourhood I get icons for the ubuntu boxes but when I try to click them open it always asks me for a password. I get:
“Enter Network Password” “You must supply a password...” “Resource: \\UBUNTU2\IPC$”
Clicking OK without a password does not work and neither of the samba/ubuntu passwords works.

It would be great if you could help me solve this final problem!

[Stormbringer]

i read through this thread and cudnt figure out how to access my windows shares from the ubuntu box.

That's quite easy actually....

Method 1 - Gnome:

While in Gnome you may use "Connect to Server" (to be found in the places menu).

Change the Drop-Down to "Windows Share (smb)", enter the name or IP# of your Windows PC, enter your name and your password. You musn't fill out all of the fields.

If you done right the icon of the network drive will appear on your desktop.

Be advised that this method has the one or another drawback:

The Windows Share gets connected as a virtual filesystem (no mountpoint). Applications not using Nautilus's file-requester dialogs (OpenOffice and Skype on Ubuntu AMD64 as an example) aren't able to access the share.

The idea behind this concept is great, the realization is ... useless.


Method 2 - Mount it

You can also mount the Share(s); either on boot or manually.

First, make sure you have smbfs installed - open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install smbfs

As soon as it's installed you can go ahead and happily mount your shares.

Example:

- Create a mountpoint
sudo mkdir /media/WindowsShare

- Mount the share into place
sudo mount -t smbfs \\WINDOWSBOX\Share /media/WindowsShare -o username=your_username,password=your_passwd,fmask= 0644,dmask=0755

NOTE: If your username or share has SPACES type it this way

... "\\WINDOWSBOX\My Share" "/media/Windows Share" ... -o username="user name", ...

To mount the shares of your Windows box on system startup you need to create the necessary lines in /etc/fstab - example:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

At the end of the file attach ...

\\WINDOWSBOX\Share /media/WindowsShare smbfs username=your_username,password=your_passwd,fmask= 0644,dmask=0755 0 0

Save the file.

Make sure the mountpoint(s) EXIST - then do a...

sudo mount -a

...to mount the shares you just added to fstab without rebooting.

-Storm

[Stormbringer]

But I cannot access the ubuntu folders from Windows. In Network Neighbourhood I get icons for the ubuntu boxes but when I try to click them open it always asks me for a password. I get:
“Enter Network Password” “You must supply a password...” “Resource: \\UBUNTU2\IPC$”

There seems to be a problem with the InterProcess Communication...


My home network is similar to yours ... 2 PCs (1x Ubuntu, 1x *******) behind a NAT hardware firewalling router (Symantec VPN 100) connected to cable.

If possible try to reconfigure your router so that all of your internal PCs get the same IP address by DHCP every time ... look out for a config option called "DHCP reservation" or such. If you tell me the make and model of your router I may be able to see if there's a manual online to assist you.

But ... back to your problem ...

The error message says IPC$ (that's the administrative "share" for the interprocess communication) on UBUNTU2 cannot be reached.

As you have set WINS to no it's no real wonder as the host cannot be reached by name (there no instance that's running a name-to-address resolver).

On Windows, open the Command-Prompt (START -> "Accessories") and try to mount the share by hand:

net use z: \\192.168.0.10\Share password /user:username /persistent:no

You need to replace the ip-address with the one of Ubuntu2 (ifconfig inside a terminal); and you may also need to tweak the driver-letter, password and username.

If it works out that way: well ... think about the suggestion I made at the beginning of this post; you won't be able to "call" the Linux-boxes by name for as long as WINS is disabled.

If it doesn't work out:

- Check if your Windows box is running a firewall (or some other protective software) that is blocking the network traffic.
- Check if your router might block the traffic.

No matter what, please report back.

-Storm

[stig]

If possible try to reconfigure your router so that all of your internal PCs get the same IP address by DHCP every time ... look out for a config option called "DHCP reservation" or such. If you tell me the make and model of your router I may be able to see if there's a manual online to assist you.

Thanks for the quick reply! I am using a Speedtouch 510 router but it is supplied as part of my broadband package by my ISP. The configuration is protected by a password and I would have to go through the ISP (who have the password) to get any changes made or to find out any config details.

On Windows, open the Command-Prompt (START -> "Accessories") and try to mount the share by hand:

net use z: \\192.168.0.10\Share password /user:username /persistent:no

You need to replace the ip-address with the one of Ubuntu2 (ifconfig inside a terminal); and you may also need to tweak the driver-letter, password and username.

I tried this but it said it did not recognise the username (which was the relevant one for the ubuntu box whose IP I entered, and using my ubuntu/samba password). I have Zonealarm butswitching it off does not help.

In the past, with a quite different set-up, I have managed to access shared folders on my ubuntu PC from the Windows PC. (But I had problems with copying files across which is why I had to give up that method and look for another). So it is possible for my Windows to access the Ubuntu PC - but not at present!

EDIT: I should have added that my primary objective was to get the Ubuntu PCs networked because I want to convert completely to Ubuntu very soon - and your howto has achieved that very smoothly and rapidly for me. Perhaps I am unusual in that I originally had less trouble getting Wndows networked to Ubuntu, than I did linking Ubuntu to Ububtu! So my motivation to change the DHCP settings is less because the Ubuntu networking is now going well.

[Stormbringer]

Thanks for the quick reply! I am using a Speedtouch 510 router but it is supplied as part of my broadband package by my ISP. The configuration is protected by a password and I would have to go through the ISP (who have the password) to get any changes made or to find out any config details.

Isn't the SpeedTouch 510 a DSL router ?!? O_o

However, you are right - with this device you cannot change it's configuration as it has been made up by your ISP.

I tried this but it said it did not recognise the username (which was the relevant one for the ubuntu box whose IP I entered, and using my ubuntu/samba password). I have Zonealarm butswitching it off does not help.

OK, so let us "debug" the problem ...

- You are able to connect from UBUNTU1 to UBUNTU2 and vice versa.
- You are NOT able to connect from Windows to UBUNTU1 by using the very same username/password credentials you used before?
- You are NOT able to connect from Windows to UBUNTU2 by using the very same username/password credentials you used before?

What about the other way? Are you able to gain access TO Windows from UBUNTU1 and/or UBUNTU2? (sorry if you already answered or mentioned that before; I'm somewhat lost in the posts).

If you can't connect from UBUNTU1 or 2 TO Windows, then it's definitely Windows causing the issue. In this case I'm rather out of ideas ... as troubleshooting Windows is way too dependend on what software is installed.

However, I would advise you to switch your Firewall as ZoneAlarm isn't exactly known to work and operate flawlessly (same goes for Symantec's Internet Security / Firewall). Simply Google the web for "Personal Firewall Review" and read through some reviews to get the picture.