Howto: Fix Windows share browsing issues

[gordintoronto]

"It does not work" doesn't give people anything to go on.

I set up a shared folder in Windows 8.1 Preview and tried to access it from Ubuntu 13.04, but I couldn't get past the password prompt. (Win 8.1 told me the password to use, no joy.)

Using Win 8.1 to access a share in Mint 13 worked the first time. I have never edited a configuration file or used the command line for anything share-related.

[lynton2]

Hi dmizer and co,

I'm having real issues being able to browse to external USB disks that are mounted to my Asrock ION which is running XBMCbuntu.

I've followed all of the information in your guide to no avail, and was wondering if you might be able to point me in the right direction. I am a massive Linux newb, so apologies if I've made any simple errors.

I'm trying to access the USB disks from my Win7 machine. From that PC, I can see other shares that are enabled by default which are stored on the OS disk on the XBMCBuntu machine - just not the external disks. Here's the output from my smb.conf. My username on XBMCBuntu is "xbmc".

[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
server string = %h server (Samba, XBMC)
netbios name = XBMC
dns proxy = no
name resolve order = lmhosts wins bcast host
guest account = xbmc
guest ok = yes
load printers = no
show add printer wizard = no
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 1000
syslog = 0
panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
encrypt passwords = true
passdb backend = tdbsam
obey pam restrictions = yes
unix password sync = yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n $
pam password change = yes
map to guest = bad user
security = SHARE
wins support = yes
dfree command = /bin/dfree.sh
create mask = 644
directory mask = 755


[Movies]
path = /home/xbmc/Movies
comment = Video's and Movies Folder
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes


[Music]
path = /home/xbmc/Music
comment = Music Folder
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes


[TV Shows]
path = /home/xbmc/TV Shows
comment = TV Shows Folder
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes


[Downloads]
path = /home/xbmc/Downloads
comment = Downloads Folder
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes


[Pictures]
path = /home/xbmc/Pictures
comment = Pictures
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes


[System]
path = /home/xbmc/.xbmc
comment = XBMC System Share
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes


[External]
path = /media/xbmc/External
public = yes
only guest = yes
comment = External_Movies
writeable = yes
guest ok = yes
browseable = yes
force user = xbmc

Of the above shares, "External" is the one that doesn't work. The others all work fine. When trying to browse to "External" from my Win7 PC, I can see the directory, but when I try to open it I get "Windows cannot access \\XBMCBUNTU\External. You do not have permission to access \\XBMCBUNTU\External. Contact your network administrator to request access."

My .conf file has blown out a little through Googling for other fixes (like force user = xbmc, which a lot of people recommended).

Any advice would be very much appreciated. I'm coming from an OpenElec build, and I much prefer the flexibility of an "actual" Linux box like XBMCBuntu provides, so I'd love to stick with it!

Thanks!

Edit: I think I'm getting closer. It seems like XBMCBuntu doesn't have the right permissions to use the external disks properly? Here's the output from ls -l:

xbmc@XBMC:~$ ls -l
total 108
drwxr-xr-x 6 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 2 11:59 couchpotato
drwxr-xr-x 6 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 2 12:20 CouchPotatoServer
drwx------ 2 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 2 22:30 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 3 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 2 00:26 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 2 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 1 23:47 Movies
drwxr-xr-x 2 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 1 23:47 Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 1 23:47 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 11 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 3 12:28 sickbeard
drwxr-xr-x 2 xbmc xbmc 4096 Oct 1 23:47 TV Shows
-rw-rw-r-- 1 xbmc xbmc 24442 Oct 2 12:14 xbmc_crashlog-20131002_121408.log
-rw-rw-r-- 1 xbmc xbmc 23924 Oct 2 12:28 xbmc_crashlog-20131002_122856.log
-rw-rw-r-- 1 xbmc xbmc 24209 Oct 3 01:37 xbmc_crashlog-20131003_013700.log

Is that what the above suggests?

[dmizer]

Hello lynton2,

In order to share a drive, it has to appear in fstab. Meaning, you'll have to create a hard mount in /etc/fstab for your usb drive. Once you've done that, then you'll have the correct permissions to share the drive with samba.

Since you're new, it's a good idea for you to understand that there are two parts of Windows sharing on Linux. There is a client side for (which this tutoral addresses) and a server side (which you need help with).

CIFS is the file system that handles browsing Windows shares from other machines. It does not require any modification of your smb.conf file. Ubuntu -> Windows
smbd is your share server. It allows other computers to see files on your Linux computer. In order for other computers to see your files, you'll need to modify of your smb.conf file. Ubuntu <- Windows

This will be helpful in the future when troublshooting other issues that you may encounter when using Windows shares.

Finally, here is a tutorial for hard mounting your USB drive: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab

[lynton2]

Thanks, dmizer! I'll give that a crack tomorrow. I started to suspect it was a mounting issue, after applications that initially worked with directories on the USB drives started failing after a reboot. I'll check the tutorial you linked. Thanks again!

[lynton2]

Hello lynton2,

Finally, here is a tutorial for hard mounting your USB drive: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fstab

Perfect. Thanks dmizer; once I'd followed that and correctly mounted the drives it all came together. Thanks again.

[2CV67]

This Howto had a large number of very satisfied customers in 2009 - 2011.

Are the recommendations still valid in 2014?
For 13.10 - 12.04LTS - W7 - W8?

It would be helpful if this could be clarified in the first post, to avoid time-wasting, one way or the other.

If no longer valid, could you point to anything equivalent?

Thanks!

[Paddy Landau]

I personally have not had problems since going to Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 7. I don't know if anyone else has problems.

[dmizer]

This Howto had a large number of very satisfied customers in 2009 - 2011.

Are the recommendations still valid in 2014?
For 13.10 - 12.04LTS - W7 - W8?

It would be helpful if this could be clarified in the first post, to avoid time-wasting, one way or the other.

If no longer valid, could you point to anything equivalent?

Thanks!

This howto addresses common problems people encounter with network configuration related to Windows share browsing. For the most part, the major points addressed here should be universal. A few of the terminal commands should be updated, but this can be circumvented by rebooting the machine.

This tutorial includes lots of information specific to Windows 7, including a blurb at the end about the tricky part of configuring Windows 7 shares in such a way that Ubuntu can see them. I have absolutely zero experience with Windows 8, and I don't have any plans to include it any time soon. I guess that's the biggest part missing from this tutorial. If someone wants to add information I'll be willing to spend some time updating the first post with more current information.

[wsmith]

> Problem 3 - Part 2
> You'll also have to install the winbind daemon in order to resolve hostnames. This is easily done with the following command:
> Code:

> sudo apt-get install winbind

As of Ubuntu 13, this has given me quite the fit. You also need to install the libnss_winbind package to make this work.

[wendt-mark]

Got a user on one of my 14.04 LTS machines who is having issues using Nautilus\gvffs\smb to mount Windows shares. Shares are being served by Windows 2012 Server machines.

User's Windows domain account keeps getting locked out after first successfully mounting a share, then either trying to open another share, or when trying to open a sub-directory under an existing share mount.

I've logged into the machine under a different account, and don't seem to have the same problem. I can successfully open multiple shares and multiple sub-directories without having my Windows domain account locked.

Where or what should I be looking for on the Ubuntu machine that would cause a problem like this?

Thanks,
Marl