HowTo: Easiest way to share files & printers with Windows

[netyire]

Justification and Notes
- There are plenty of tutorials on the ubuntu forums that cover samba shares or printer sharing but I'll suppose that you want the fastest, easiest, least troublesome method to share files and printers with windows
- I'll attempt to provide the simplest method to do so in this guide
- For convention sake (rules for publishing a tutorial), author declares that no support is guaranteed.

Assumptions

- You want to share files & printers quickly and easily in a home environment
- You've got a firewall which blocks everything save the ip addresses of the computers you want to share files with and a couple of other required services

Sharing Files
Linux
- Open a terminal & enter "sudo apt-get install samba" without the brackets
- In the same terminal type "sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf"
- For the following step set WORKGROUPNAME to the workgroup defined under the windows computer (Right click My Computer and select properties under windows to access the workgroup name under the 'Computer Name' tab)
- Paste the following into the file, but edit the stuff in CAPS

[global]
   workgroup = WORKGROUPNAME
   server string = COMPUTERDESCRIPTION
   security = share
[Shared]
path = /home/USERNAME/FOLDER
available = yes
browsable = yes
public = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
create mask = 0777
directory mask = 0777

- In the same terminal enter "sudo chmod 777 -R /home/USERNAME/FOLDER" or whatever path you set above
- Finally enter "sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart" in the same terminal

Windows XP
- Open My Computer, click tools->map network drive
- Enter "\\LINUXIPADDRESS\Shared" in 'Folder' box and select an unused drive letter
- Click 'Finish'

Sharing Printers
Linux
- Click System->Adminstration->Printing (On the same menu as your 'start' bar or application launch bar)
- Setup your printer
- Select 'Share Published Printers Connected To This System' under 'Server Settings'

Windows XP
- Enter "LINUXIPADDRESS:631/printers" in Internet Explorer or compatible web browser
- Mouseover the big printer name and copy the text in the status bar, or if you're using IE right click -> properties and copy the link address. In firefox, you can right click -> copy link location
- Start the 'Add new printer wizard' under printers & faxes in the control panel
- Select 'Network Printer' and click next
- Choose 'Connect to this printer' and paste the stuff you copied just now
- Select the driver for the printer (install it from disc) or choose a generic 'color printer'
- Click 'Finish' to complete the wizard

Resources
- http://www.debuntu.org/guest-file-sharing-with-samba
- Ubuntu Forums

Remarks
- Please tell me how it turned out!

[neill]

hi

i get an 'error 403 - forbidden' when i enter 192.168.1.1:631/printers

why might that be ??

ta

/neill

[miciurin]

Thank you very much. I tried to share the printer before with zero success. I followed your guide to the letter and it WORKS perfectly. I have just printed my first page from my XP laptop. On a secondary note, it will be useful for newbies to indicate where they can find the LINUXIP address. In my case (KUBUNTU) imoused over the plag icon (nera the clock and date) and that showed my kubuntu IP address.

Awesome.

[netyire]

Hi Neil! I think the problem may be with how the printers are setup. Click System->Administration->Printing and make sure that sharing of printers is allowed and that no restrictions are in place as to which users can access the printer. (Select the printer you wish to share and click on the access control tab)

Check if you have the right IP address first, open a terminal and enter sudo ifconfig /all
Then check if you can ping your linux box from windows, in windows click start->run type cmd and click run. Then type ping LINUXIPADDRESS. If you cannot ping the linux box this most probably means you have a firewall running. (Not sure which though). From here either add an exception if you know what firewall is running and how to go about doing that or install firestarter (hopefully the firewall is iptables, in which case you can use firestarter to reconfigure it), follow the setup instructions and add the WINDOWSIPADDRESS as an exception under the host section of the policy tab in Firestarter.

[spinanicky]

Is there a way to monitor how much each ip (or computer on the network) has printed. Basically I live with 3 house mates and want to be able to monitor how much each person has printed so that we can split the cost of a new cartridge among ourselfs depending on how much each person has printed...

Thanks
Nicky

[Rick K]

If I understands this correctly, this assumes the printer is on the Linux box. In my house (due to space concerns), the printer is on the XP machine. Is there an easy and similar way to share printers in that config?

Thanks.

Rick

[reswob]

Anyone have any ideas about how to add a MAC OS X to this mix?

I have Ubuntu, XP and OS X (Tiger) at home and would like to share between all three. So how do I set up Tiger?

Thanks

Craig

[deeaycee]

WOW!! This worked GREAT! Simple and quick. I'm running Xubuntu, XP, XP, Ubuntu and PCOS. I gave up long ago trying to share files with my XPs and this worked perfectly. Thanks

[Vistaus]

Thank you so much I tried so hard and searched all over the internet, but it was just this easy :O Ubuntu recognised the printers automatically, so I could print with Ubuntu for weeks. But Windows was a pity.

Only 1 question: How can you choose between color and black/white on Windows?

[Vistaus]

Originally Posted by spinanicky Is there a way to monitor how much each ip (or computer on the network) has printed. Basically I live with 3 house mates and want to be able to monitor how much each person has printed so that we can split the cost of a new cartridge among ourselfs depending on how much each person has printed... Thanks Nicky

Install Webmin on your Linux machine