Sharing and Groups - Help

[smartergeek]

Hello everyone,

This may not be the best correct place to post, but since I run the desktop edition I thought I'd start here.

In the past, I've been able to setup several Ubuntu file servers for simple file sharing (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=651001) for everyone on the network. This works fine with these particular customers, and they love the nearly flawless performance of Ubuntu vs Windows XP Pro or 2003 Server.

Here is what I need help with - and I have googled my fingers off trying to find it.

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What is the easiest and best way (with a GUI preferably) to setup groups, add users to the groups, and share files across a network with Windows pc's?

*Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron w/ LAMP
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If possible can someone point me to step by step directions. I can share easily enough with either everyone (not desirable in this case) or with the file/directory owner but I need desperately to be able to setup Groups.

Thanks to the community for your help. I'm on a time crunch here.

*Side Notes: I tried eBox - that is a real pain.

[IanVonSpeedfreak]

I'm not %100 sure how to help you, as I've never done this before, but from the sound of things, Samba (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpSamba) may be what you need.

Here's a link (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202605&highlight=HowTo+Samba) to a HowTo that may help you, there are several more, but as I said, this is not something I've been able to do either, so one of the other HowTos (http://ubuntuforums.org/search.php?searchid=48332544) might be better.

If this is totally not what you were looking for, I apologize for wasting your time. As a side note, this might have been better posted in Networking or Absolute Beginner Talk, but the mods'll handle it if that's the case.

[smartergeek]

Thanks - I will check that one out.

I'm currently looking into Webmin. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

[IanVonSpeedfreak]

Never heard of it until now, from the looks of things it's only a web-based control panel you run for filesharing... not an actual filesharing program (in other words, it allows you to access filesharing programs installed on the host computer). Of course, this is not something I know a helluva lot about, and I might be misunderstanding what it is you want.

[smartergeek]

< crickets chirping >

I can share files with either everyone or the user account that I'm logged into, but for the life of me I can't setup a group in users/groups and then share that with members of the groups.

Help please. I'm about to go back to Windows at this rate.:(

[mister_p_1998]

I use freenas as a file server, easy 15 mins to install!

[smartergeek]

Thanks for suggesting FreeNas, but I'd really prefer to get this running under ubuntu.

Anyone else have any suggestions? Surely I'm not the only person in the world with this issue?