Samba (smb)
2016-11-04Overview
Samba is a free software re-implementation of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol. Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Microsoft Windows Server domain, either as a Domain Controller (DC) or as a domain member. As of version 4, it supports Active Directory and Microsoft Windows NT domains.
Configuration
On Ubuntu configuration file is located in /etc/samba/smb.conf. You need root privileges to edit it.
Sample file
[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
server string = servername
unix password sync = yes
access based share enum = yes
[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no
read only = no
writable = yes
guest ok = no
create mask = 0600
directory mask = 0700
security = user
[accounting]
comment = Accounting Department Directory
writable = yes
valid users = @account
path = /media/storage/accounting
create mask = 0660
directory mode = 0770
force group = account
[public]
comment = Public
browsable = yes
path = /media/storage/public
public = yes
read only = no
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
create mask = 0666
directory mode = 0777
You need to set public storage directory permissions to be 777 (drwxrwxrwx) and for directories shared in group 770 (drwxrwx---). Don’t forget to change group of shared directories with chown -R :groupname path.
This is how we can create group account and add bob to account.
groupadd account
adduser bob
usermod -a -G account bob
smbpasswd -a bob
Configuring anonymous public shares
[public]
comment = Public
browsable = yes
path = /media/storage/public
public = yes
read only = no
writable = no
write list = bob
guest ok = yes
This sets up a share named public which is shown when browsing the server to any user with rights to do so. You can see it is public, but not writable except for bob and that it is ok for guests to login.
[global]
# ...
guest account = nobody
Which defines the account to use when authenticating guests. Don’t forget to create this user using smbpasswd -an nobody. This will create the user with no password.
[global]
#...
map to guest = bad user
This maps any unknown username to the specified guest user, so login always succeeds.
Useful commands
sudo service smbd restart- restarts samba server (reloads config)