Samba Help - worked fine and then went belly up

[peeweejd]

ubuntu 20.04.2
samba 4.11.6-Ubuntu

Can anyone offer any advice to fix my Samba share problem?

I run this computer as a Plex server. It has a SSD that runs the OS and such, and a HDD that has all my Plex media files on it. I run the server headless and use a Samba share to manage files on the HDD (add/change/delete) from various Windows 10 PCs and Android devices on the local network. One evening last week I added some files using the Samba share, and the next morning I tried again and could not connect to the Samba share.


The Plex server is running fine and can access the media files on the HDD
I can see the server on my Windows machine and Android devices.
sudo ufw status gives Status: inactive
I have stopped and started the Samba service using sudo service smbd stop and sudo service smbd start. Both commands ran with no errors.
I updated everything and have restarted the server multiple times.
I uninstalled and re-installed Samba (including a fresh smb.conf file)


Sudo smbstatus gives the result below (no shares are listed)

Samba version 4.11.6-Ubuntu
PID Username Group Machine Protocol Version Encryption Signing
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Service pid Machine Connected at Encryption Signing
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No locked files

This is the share listed in my /etc/samba/smb.conf file

[hda]
path = /media/hda/sharehda
read only = no
browsable = yes
public = yes

[slickymaster]

Thread moved to Server Platforms.

[LHammonds]

Have you run this command yet to verify the syntax in your config file?

testparm

LHammonds

[peeweejd]

Have you run this command yet to verify the syntax in your config file?

testparm

LHammonds


Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
Loaded services file OK.
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE

Press enter to see a dump of your service definitions

# Global parameters
[global]
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
logging = file
map to guest = Bad User
max log size = 1000
obey pam restrictions = Yes
panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword: * %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
server role = standalone server
server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
usershare allow guests = Yes
idmap config * : backend = tdb


[printers]
browseable = No
comment = All Printers
create mask = 0700
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = Yes


[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /var/lib/samba/printers


[hda]
guest ok = Yes
path = /media/hda/sharehda
read only = No

[rsteinmetz70112]

Are you sure the path is correct? Shouldn't it be a partition rather than the whole disk?
What does lsblk show?

[peeweejd]

Are you sure the path is correct? Shouldn't it be a partition rather than the whole disk?
What does lsblk show?

The drive only has one partition and I share the whole thing (it just holds media files for the Plex server). The OS is installed on a solid state drive.

The path works

peeweejd@plexy:/$ cd /media/hda/sharehda
peeweejd@plexy:/media/hda/sharehda$ ls
DCIM plexmedia


lsblk output

peeweejd@plexy:/$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0 7:0 0 67.6M 1 loop /snap/lxd/20326
loop1 7:1 0 55.5M 1 loop /snap/core18/1988
loop2 7:2 0 32.3M 1 loop /snap/snapd/11588
loop3 7:3 0 55.5M 1 loop /snap/core18/1997
loop4 7:4 0 32.3M 1 loop /snap/snapd/11402
loop5 7:5 0 70.4M 1 loop /snap/lxd/19647
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 465.8G 0 part /media/hda
sdb 8:16 0 465.8G 0 disk
nvme0n1 259:0 0 232.9G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 1M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 1G 0 part /boot
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 231.9G 0 part
└─ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 253:0 0 116G 0 lvm /

[Morbius1]

The local server user "nobody" has to have write access to sharehda and at least execute permissions on media and hda so what are the permissions on the tree:

ls -al /media/hda

[peeweejd]

The local server user "nobody" has to have write access to sharehda and at least execute permissions on media and hda so what are the permissions on the tree:

ls -al /media/hda

I'm not good a permissions...


peeweejd@plexy:/$ ls -al /media/
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 15 17:48 .
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4096 Nov 7 2020 ..
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Nov 7 2020 hda
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 15 17:48 hdb


peeweejd@plexy:/$ ls -al /media/hda
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Nov 7 2020 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 15 17:48 ..
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Nov 6 2020 lost+found
drwxrwxrwx 4 nobody nogroup 4096 Apr 10 16:44 sharehda


peeweejd@plexy:/$ ls -al /media/hda/sharehda
total 16
drwxrwxrwx 4 nobody nogroup 4096 Apr 10 16:44 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Nov 7 2020 ..
drwxrwxr-x 6 peeweejd peeweejd 4096 Apr 10 16:48 DCIM
drwxrwxr-x 9 peeweejd peeweejd 4096 Apr 1 20:25 plexmedia

[Morbius1]

THe easiest way out of this is to edit your share definition to make all network connections - at least to this share - as peeweejd:


[hda]
path = /media/hda/sharehda
read only = no
browsable = yes
public = yes
force user = peeweejd
Then restart smbd:

sudo service smbd restart

Right now no one has write access to the plexmedia folder but peeweejd. The change above will ensure it.

[peeweejd]

THe easiest way out of this is to edit your share definition to make all network connections - at least to this share - as peeweejd:


Then restart smbd:

sudo service smbd restart

Right now no one has write access to the plexmedia folder but peeweejd. The change above will ensure it.

Thanks for helping so much. I don't think it's working still.

testparm shows the same output as earlier (except the force user line I just added).

smbstatus does not show the share still. I believe it should show the [hda] part in there, correct?

peeweejd@plexy:/$ sudo smbstatus

Samba version 4.11.6-Ubuntu
PID Username Group Machine Protocol Version Encryption Signing
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Service pid Machine Connected at Encryption Signing
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No locked files

edit: I believe it's working again. I restarted the client PC and I am able to connect. I cannot connect on my android devices though. I will look into this separately.

[Morbius1]

smbstatus will only show something if someone accesses the server and it's share.