How to File Share in Ubuntu 10.04 Easily and using GUI's only

[WolfRage]

How to File Share in Ubuntu 10.04 Easily and using GUI's only.

Disclaimer: Sharing files in this way is not secure; so please make sure you only do this on a private network that has been properly secured. Otherwise any user on the network can access and modify your shared files; you have been warned!

1. "Applications" menu ->"Ubuntu Software Center" -> in the search box type "Samba" then install "Samba". (Because even though you enabled file share and tried to share the files 10.04 seems to not actually install "Samba". Plus this installs the "Samba" GUI.)
2. This step was removed to prevent confusion.
3. "System" menu -> "Administration" -> "Samba". Enter your password. In the GUI that opens up choose "Preferences" menu -> "Server Settings" then the "Security" tab change the authentication mode to share and the guest account to your user name account. This prevents permission problems later on.
4. Choose the "Add a Samba Share"; the green plus icon; browse to the directory you wish to share. Place a check mark in "Writable" and "Visible". Then on the "Access" tab choose "Allow access to everyone".
5. Press OK; now your should be able to see the share from the other computers just choose "Places" menu -> "Network" then either the computer name if it shows up or select "Windows Network" -> "WORKGROUP" -> Computer Name then the Shared folder.

2. Share the selected folder via natuilus, right-click on the folder and choose "Sharing Options" or "Properties" -> "Sharing" Tab. This may be an unnecessary step but at least we know Nautilus has applied the proper permissions for us; on the pop-up choose "Automatically Update Permissions".

I hope that this helps as many of you as possible. If anyone has any updates please let me know. I am glad to see that this can finally be done all using GUI's now but it still should be as simple as sharing the folder with the "Sharing Options" selection in Nautilus. There is still work to be done on this in Ubuntu.
I am going to jump on Launch Pad and look for all of the bugs that I can find related to these issues and see if I can contribute what I have learned and maybe I can try to organize some of the bugs to get a collective fix in the works. I will post back any updates.
Please If you used my method please note this is not the way it is supposed to be done in 10.04 so you are affected by the bug. Please go to this bug and be counted. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ba/+bug/592610

[Paddy Landau]

This didn't work for me, until I made a certain change to the Samba file in all of the computers.

If you have the same problem as I did, try the following.

1. Edit the Samba file. The easiest way is to press Alt-F2 and enter gksu gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf
2. Scroll down to where you see the [global] section (probably at the end of the file).
3. Anywhere under there, add the following two lines:
   name resolve order = bcast host lmhosts wins
   os level = 33
4. Double-check that you've typed it right. Save. Reboot.

[matt-fender]

I ****ing love you, i will have your babies :d:d:d:d

[AfrikaDietmar]

Hello WolfRage,

Just installed Ubuntu 10.04, and with this tutorial plus the GUI it is really great and practical to setup a sharing folder. I did it step by step and it worked.

5. Press OK; now your should be able to see the share from the other computers just choose "Places" menu -> "Network" then either the computer name if it shows up or select "Windows Network" -> "WORKGROUP" -> Computer Name then the Shared folder.

I edited the smb.conf file with
sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

And inputed the name of the windows work group, it appears there.

Is there also a different way by using the GUI to set the name of the workgroup ?

Disclaimer: Sharing files in this way is not secure; so please make sure you only do this on a private network that has been properly secured. Otherwise any user on the network can access and modify your shared files; you have been warned!

1. I have a network, or in other words a simple workgroup with shared folders and I would like to make it as such, that for other users, when they want to access the shared folder, they need to input a password.

2. Then in that folder, i will have some folders that i would also like to protect or only give access to specific people with password protection, or make it accessible only to certain users. Any idea how todo this ?

[Paddy Landau]

Is there also a different way by using the GUI to set the name of the workgroup ?

System > Administration > Samba > Preferences > Server Settings > Basic > Workgroup.

[AfrikaDietmar]

Hi Paddy,

thanks!

When usind the GUI my ubuntu was crashing a lot.

I did the following in terminal:
got myself root status with: sudo su
and then rm -r /etc/samba
thought it would remove samba and then i can reinstall it from the software centre.

Well after that i had some more problems. Function apt -get install samba wasn't working.
I then tried again installation from the software centre, there i got some error messages because it was having some issues with the missing smb.conf, but the error message suggested a fix by copying it and give the exact line i had to input in terminal.
That somehow solved the problem and i was able to instal GUI and SMB/CIF file.

I did reboot and GUI is working and i managed to make it show a folder in the windows network.

But what is missing now is when i right click on a folder, there are no "Sharing Options"... Any idea how to make that reappear again ?

[AfrikaDietmar]

Problem got solved by re installing Nautilus.

[Morbius1]

I don't usually comment on someone else's HowTo because I think that's just rude but in this case what your are suggesting can actually cause one method to interfere with another.

There are two completely different methods of using samba to share files and you're using both on the same target:

Nautilus-share

2. Share the selected folder via natuilus, right-click on the folder and choose "Sharing Options" or "Properties" -> "Sharing" Tab.

It's share definitions are located in : /var/lib/samba/usershares.

Classic-shares

3. "System" menu -> "Administration" -> "Samba".

It's share definitions are located in: /etc/samba/smb.conf

It's best to use one method or the other. Both can be used but you need to keep track of what method you're using with what share because you don't want to use both methods on the same target directory. It appears you're only using Nautilus-share to change the permissions of the target ( which is one of it's advantages over Classic-share ), but that can easy be done by using Nautilus > Right Click > Properties > Permissions.

3. "System" menu -> "Administration" -> "Samba". Enter your password. In the GUI that opens up choose "Preferences" menu -> "Server Settings" then the "Security" tab change the authentication mode to share and the guest account to your user name account. This prevents permission problems later on.

Share level security has been deprecated and hasn't been used since the Regan administration. There are other ways to prevent the "permissions problems" you refer to ( I'm guessing you mean the "nobody" owner for files that are sent from that remote guest ) than setting the guest to you.

I am glad to see that this can finally be done all using GUI's now but it still should be as simple as sharing the folder with the "Sharing Options" selection in Nautilus. There is still work to be done on this in Ubuntu.

Ya lost me on on this one. Had you stuck with nautilus-share to the end your HowTo would have looked like this:

Open Nautilus
Right Click on a folder you own
Select "Sharing Options"
Select "Share this folder", "Allow others to create and delete files..", and "Guest Access"
Select "Create Share"
It will ask you if you want to modify permissions - you do

You just created a public share using nautilus alone.

I would urge you to remove item two. Then your post will be about Classic-share alone and that will minimize confusion. What you don't want is someone eventually using nautilus-share to create an authenticated share and using Classic-share to create a guest share on the same target.

[Paddy Landau]

I did the following in terminal:
got myself root status with: sudo su
and then rm -r /etc/samba
thought it would remove samba and then i can reinstall it from the software centre.

OK, some explanation is needed.

1. You never should have to become root with sudo su. Instead just issue the command with sudo:
   sudo rm -r /etc/samba
   It's safer that way.
2. When you delete a configuration directory (which is what you did), you're not uninstalling anything. You're only deleting the configuration files for that package.
3. Synaptic keeps track of all installed packages and their dependencies, so always install and uninstall using Synaptic. If you delete a program's directory, Synaptic won't know about it, so can't keep track of the required dependencies.
4. The correct way to remove (uninstall) Samba or any other package is through Synaptic using any one of the following three methods.
   
   • Ubuntu Software Manager.
   • System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. If you "Mark for Removal", it removes the package; if you "Mark for Complete Removal", it both removes it and (supposedly) removes the configuration files.
   • Remove (uninstall) Samba from the terminal (same as "Mark for Removal"):
     sudo apt-get remove samba
     Remove samba and its configuration files (same as "Mark for Complete Removal"):
     sudo apt-get purge samba
   
   

Well after that i had some more problems. Function apt -get install samba wasn't working.

The above explanation will let you understand why you couldn't install; Synaptic had it noted as installed (which it was -- you'd simply deleted the configuration).

As you got it working by reinstalling Nautilus, I'm guessing that Synaptic added whatever dependencies were missing. Enjoy.

[AfrikaDietmar]

@Morbius1

ok, that makes more sense to me now concerning classic and nautilus share.

@Paddy
thanks for this step by step way to handle that, that gives me a whole new perception how things are structured.

By the way, whenever from synaptic, the installation wasn't working, there was an error message that was so kind to say which command line to apply in the terminal in order to copy the smb.conf file, it copied it from somewhere. After that it kind of worked.

It wasn't really necessary that i install Nautilus. I installed it because i found it strange that no emblem was showing on the folder when i shared it through the SAMBA GUI. So i thought something was missing. But thanks to the explanation of Morbius i have no understood that Nautilus and Samba are 2 different things. I have removed the nautlis shared option and did it with Samba GUI and added manually an emblem to the shared folder to identify it.

I recently tried to restart samba in the terminal with
sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart
it didn't work.

I checked in synaptic file manager and it looks like its still there...
Should i completely remove the package and reinstall ?