Howto: Fix Windows share browsing issues

[glave]

Yes. No windows machines are using firewalls at all. The primary issue though is I can't browse the network at all. I don't even really want to access windows machines, just the unraid server.

I know I can mount the shares permanently via fstab, and I've done so in the past, but I'd still like to just get this annoyance fixed as well.

[glave]

Dmizer: Just so I could test, I followed the link in your sig (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202605) and started from scratch.

The only settings I modified were the hostname and workgroup. This pc is on a static ip, so I left wins server alone. Browsing the network in nautilus still gives me the unable to mount error.

Again, no firewall, and this was working perfectly a short time ago.

[dmizer]

Dmizer: Just so I could test, I followed the link in your sig (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202605) and started from scratch.

The only settings I modified were the hostname and workgroup. This pc is on a static ip, so I left wins server alone. Browsing the network in nautilus still gives me the unable to mount error.

Again, no firewall, and this was working perfectly a short time ago.

Your problem may be related to static IP then. Are all your host names added to /etc/hosts?

[billyboy1995]

this may be a bit off topic but... do you know how to connect to a windows shared printer? i have tryed to find someone to tell me how but nobody will tell me how. Also going back on topic i cant see my windows computes in the network thingy in the places meneu....sorry i dont know its name im a real noob with ubuntu but a geek with windows....

Thanks in advance Bill

[glave]

They were not. Yesterday I did add the 1 machine I'm interested in browsing to /etc/hosts, but still same result.

[strictlybusiness]

I had a similar problem which brought me to this thread, but the solution was on the Windows side.
After setting up Jaunty on Intel D945GCLF2, I was able to see my Vista machine on the Windows network, but unable to browse shared folders ("Failed to mount Windows share"). Followed all instructions in this thread, editing smb.conf etc, to no avail (but probably have a more correct setup now).
Curiously, one of the shared folders on the Vista machine did mount even though all the others didn't. Led me to believe that the setup was wrong on the Vista side instead, which it was.
For me, the solution was to edit the users (right click the shared folder in Vista, go to Sharing tab, click Share..., click Change sharing permissions) and make sure that Administrators, [MyUserAccount], and Everyone had permissions (just click add, type in Everyone, choose desired permission level).
After that, my Ubuntu machine could browse all Windows shares.
This may not be the same problem as glave and others have, but it's worth looking into.

[strictlybusiness]

Forgot to mention - while the instructions kindly provided by dmizer are excellent, adding the "wins" into smb.conf broke my XBMC, as wins also appeared in /etc/nsswitch.conf. Removed it there and XBMC works again.

[mgmiller]

Problem 2:
There is no easy way to change the workgroup that Ubuntu belongs to. This means that you can either assign all of your Windows computers to the “WORKGROUP” workgroup (as outlined under "Problem 1"), or edit /etc/samba/smb.conf in order to change the workgroup that Ubuntu is a member of.

This is not true.

Open a terminal and enter:

shares-admin

You will get a gui for changing many samba properties, including the workgroup, which is on the "General Properties" tab.

If you find this useful, you should add it to your menus in the Administration area. I don't know why this isn't there by default. According to its help file, it is supposed to be there under System > Administration > Shared Folders.
It also allows you drag and drop folders you want to share into its main window, which will open a dialog box with all the sharing parameters, among many other things. It seems to give more options than simply right clicking the folder you want to share and selecting properties and going to the "share" tab.


For even more samba tweaking fun, you can add a full gui interface:

sudo apt-get install system-config-samba

This will put an entry in your menus at System > Administration > Samba
Once you run it, look in Preferences > Server Settings to change the workgroup.

This gui seems to find more things than the server-admin one. It shows my shared printer for example, where the first one I mentioned does not.

[dmizer]

Thank you very much for that extremly helpful post. It seems the above is true even for my Hardy install. I'll look more closely at this and try to include it in the howto.

I don't know why this isn't there by default.

I surely don't know. It would have saved me a huge amount of trouble early on.

[mgmiller]

Thank you very much for that extremly helpful post. It seems the above is true even for my Hardy install. I'll look more closely at this and try to include it in the howto.

I surely don't know. It would have saved me a huge amount of trouble early on.

You're welcome.

There is one other issue that has been hashed out on several other threads and that is simply not having the network browse gui work at all or as expected. This happens to people suddenly, where it was fine one day and mysteriously stops working the next.

What I discovered and have submitted a bug report on:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/389909

Is that when your ISP starts to use DNS redirection, you lose the ability to browse your local network. If you are using a simple home network, not on AD or other fancy stuff, the fix is very simple.

Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and:
change this:

# What naming service and in what order should we use to resolve host names
# to IP addresses
;   name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast
 

to this:
# What naming service and in what order should we use to resolve host names
# to IP addresses
    name resolve order = lmhosts wins bcast host

Notice that host has been moved from 2nd place to 4th place and the leading semi-colon [;] has been removed.


After saving the file, log off and back on and that should do it.


If you are lucky enough to have Optimum Online as your ISP, you can opt out of DNS redirection by going here:
http://www.optimum.net/Article/DNS


Failing that, you may be able to find a different DNS server somewhere that does not use redirection to create a revinue stream for itself and switch to that.