HOWTO: Setup Samba peer-to-peer with Windows

[Ladybird78]

Hello Morbius!,
Yes, the initial share is okay, I think for some time I couldnt see it on the network so I was worried. But now I can see my old share ( /home/samba)
So when you say, create a new share that is a new username and a password is that correct?And I will have to put this new username as the "force user". Also is there anything that I need to do on my Windows machine?

Thanks again!

[Morbius1]

Hello Morbius!,
Yes, the initial share is okay, I think for some time I couldnt see it on the network so I was worried. But now I can see my old share ( /home/samba)
So when you say, create a new share that is a new username and a password is that correct?And I will have to put this new username as the "force user". Also is there anything that I need to do on my Windows machine?

Thanks again!

You don't want a new username and password. It has to be your local login username. The username you use to login to the box that has the external drive attached to it.

Again following the original tutorial, you should have two shares in smb.conf. The original one:

[MyFiles]
    path = /media/samba/
    browseable = yes
    read only = no
    guest ok = no
    create mask = 0644
    directory mask = 0755
    force user = YOUR_USERNAME
    force group = YOUR_USERGROUP

And the new one:

[MyFiles2]
    path = /media/MyBook/
    browseable = yes
    read only = no
    guest ok = no
    create mask = 0644
    directory mask = 0755
    force user = YOUR_USERNAME
    force group = YOUR_USERGROUP

[iamsickofschool]

Hey, this guide was awesome man. It helped me out so much more than anything I have read. A few things though. I don't know if this has been covered since I didn't read through the 95 pages of replies but the new version of samba got rid of the /etc/init.d/samba file. The thread I provided contains what they have changed it too. Besides needing the new file to turn samba on and off, it didn't mess anything else up in your guide.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1439418

I do have a question though, and again I don't know if this was covered previously but my Win7 computer sees my Linux computer with no problem after using your guide but Linux can't seem to find my Win7 computer. Do you have any advice?

[r.fortunato6995]

thanks your tutorial, so far it is the best I have read. I finally was able to join my home network and I can access my files from a windows OS computer however, I when I try to acess any windows computer from Linux, i get a message: "you can stop this by clicking stop" then in about 3 minutes, i get another message: "unable to mount location, failed to retreive share list from server" I may have an error on my parametters, but I am not an expert at this. here is what I have done so far:

[global]
; General server settings
netbios name = RAMON

workgroup = RAMONET
announce version = 5.0
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_KEEPALIVE SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

passdb backend = tdbsam
security = user
null passwords = true
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
name resolve order = hosts wins bcast

wins support = yes

printing = CUPS
printcap name = CUPS

syslog = 1
syslog only = yes

; NOTE: If you need access to the user home directories uncomment the
; lines below and adjust the settings to your hearts content.
;[homes]
;valid users = %S
;create mode = 0600
;directory mode = 0755
;browseable = no
;read only = no
;veto files = /*.{*}/.*/mail/bin/

; NOTE: Only needed if you run samba as a primary domain controller.
; Not needed as this config doesn't cover that matter.
;[netlogon]
;path = /var/lib/samba/netlogon
;admin users = Administrator
;valid users = %U
;read only = no

; NOTE: Again - only needed if you're running a primary domain controller.
;[Profiles]
;path = /var/lib/samba/profiles
;valid users = %U
;create mode = 0600
;directory mode = 0700
;writeable = yes
;browseable = no

; NOTE: Inside this place you may build a printer driver repository for
; Windows - I'll cover this topic in another HOWTO.
[print$]
path = /var/lib/samba/printers
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes
read only = yes
write list = root
create mask = 0664
directory mask = 0775

[printers]
path = /tmp
printable = yes
guest ok = yes
browseable = no

; Uncomment if you need to share your CD-/DVD-ROM Drive
;[DVD-ROM Drive]
;path = /media/cdrom
;browseable = yes
;read only = yes
;guest ok = yes

[MyFiles]
path = /home/samba/

read only = no
guest ok = no
create mask = 0644
directory mask = 0755
force user = ramon
force group = ramon
available = no
browsable = yes
public = no
writable = no


please let me know if what I have done wrong. thank you.

[stig]

This message "Unable to mount location, failed to retrieve share list from server" seems to crop up often in the forums and cause a lot of people trouble. Have a look at this thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1493834&page=2

The guy who posted the thread managed to solve his problem but it didn't cure mine. I added my information in the thread from page 2 but it probably got ignored because the thread was then labelled `Solved' on behalf of the original poster. I finally re-installed samba and that seemed to cure the main problem. It seems odd though that samba should corrupt on all my PCs at exactly the same time.

My network was set up using Stormbringer's guide and had been working flawlessly until this recent problem. Now I still get problems where one day all is well and every PC sees every other one and then days when one is OK but not another etc. There seems no rational basis to it. Does it matter the order in which the PCs are booted up? Does any one PC have priority over another? I'm using DHCP and I set up the network using samba originally because I had both windows and Ubuntu but for some years now I have had only Ubuntu. All PCs are still on 8.04 LTS.

[ivan7777]

Hi guys,

Another noob here. I've followed the tutorial to the letter even copying the smb.conf and changing only the appropriate fields such as workgroup and the share names.

however, on my windows 7 network the ubuntu server didn't show up but I can still access it by typing its ip address.

Now, there is no problem doing normal stuff like copying, deleting files, etc but recently I tried to backup my windows 7 on to it but it failed all the time after a while.

Just wondering what do I need to do to make it the server visible on the network window without typing the ip address.

I'm using the latest ubuntu server.

Regards,

Ivan

[Eina1]

I'm new to ubuntu and networks so all of this seems greeg, my first problem is that I get a bad flag error when I try to safe the getit file. I've got 3 pc' 1 ubuntu 10.04, one with hardy heron (for the emc) and 1 laptop (win xp), I would like to enentually have them all on a network

[Morbius1]

I'm new to ubuntu and networks so all of this seems greeg, my first problem is that I get a bad flag error when I try to safe the getit file. I've got 3 pc' 1 ubuntu 10.04, one with hardy heron (for the emc) and 1 laptop (win xp), I would like to enentually have them all on a network

To answer your specific question, you need to open gedit this way:

gksu gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

You know, this HowTo is predicated on this observation:

Since the installation of samba just installed a rather useless template file we're going to rename it - we keep the file just in case.

That may very well have been true in 2006 and Ubuntu 6.06 when this was written but I would argue that it may not be true today.

[Eina1]

error: line 53474: bad flag vector alias
error: line 53475: bad flag alias index: 0
error: line 53475: bad flag vector alias
error: line 53476: bad flag alias index: 0

desktop:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/samba start
sudo: /etc/init.d/samba: command not found


Just some of the lines I've copied.
I did get the file made and safed - i've found it trough the (windows)
but there's no samba in /etc/init.d.

[Morbius1]

desktop:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/samba start
sudo: /etc/init.d/samba: command not found

Like I said this HowTo is very old.

There have been changes to how services are started and even the mechanism that's used to start them.

In Ubuntu 10.04 the way to start samba is:

sudo service smbd start.

If it's already running and you want to restart it:

sudo service smbd restart