Installing Samba Server

Posted Thursday, 04 March 2010 at 03:31 by Andrew Liu
Tagged: linux | networking | web development
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OS: Fedora 10

Accessing a your server's filesystem directly from your windows computer can be achieved by using Samba. Samba has been around for quite a while, and does the job admirably. First thing we need is to install the packages.

1. Install Samba

> yum install samba

Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies

...

Installed:
samba.i386 0:3.2.8-0.26.fc10

Updated:
samba-common.i386 0:3.2.8-0.26.fc10 samba-winbind.i386 0:3.2.8-0.26.fc10

Complete!
> yum install samba-client

Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies

...

Installed:
samba-client.i386 0:3.2.8-0.26.fc10

Complete!

2. Basic Configuration

Once installed, we have configuration files located in "/etc/samba". The file we want to modify "/etc/samba/smb.conf".

> vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

74 workgroup = MYGROUP
75 server string = Samba Server Version %v

76
77 ; netbios name = MYSERVER

79 ; interfaces = lo eth0 192.168.12.2/24 192.168.13.2/24
80 ; hosts allow = 127. 192.168.12. 192.168.13.

a) The "workgroup" / "server string" lines are equivalent to windows workgroup and computer description. You should fill these out the workgroup to be the same on all your computers in your LAN. Server string is just a short description.

b) "netbios name" is like "computer name" in windows, and it applies to the network only. I think by default it uses your /etc/hostname already, but if you have a preferred computer name, different to your hostname, you should put it in here. Otherwise, leave it commented out.

You can leave "interfaces" and "hosts allow" commented out. This will allow anyone to access samba.

3. Creating a super public folder

I tend to like having a globally accessible folder over samba. It just makes things less complicated. Unless you have good reason to do otherwise, I suggest doing the same.

To do this, I create a user called "samba". The public folder will be located in this users home directory, called "public".

> useradd samba

> cd /home/samba

> mkdir public

> chmod 777 public

> chown samba:samba public

> ls -al

total 32
drwx------ 5 samba samba 4096 2009-02-28 22:36 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 2009-02-28 22:35 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 samba samba 18 2008-12-15 22:04 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 samba samba 176 2008-12-15 22:04 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 samba samba 124 2008-12-15 22:04 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 2 samba samba 4096 2008-10-29 05:49 .gnome2
drwxr-xr-x 4 samba samba 4096 2008-11-20 06:11 .mozilla
drwxrwxrwx 2 samba samba 4096 2009-02-28 22:36 public

And now we need to add this folder to the samba configuration file. Add your shares at the bottom as this is the most logical place to put them.

> vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

289
290 [public]
291 path = /home/samba/public
292 comment = Public Folder
293 public = yes
294 writable = yes
295 create mask = 0666

296 directory mask = 0777
297 force group = samba
298 valid users = @samba

Finally, we need to add a user to samba. Samba uses its own method to authenticate users and passwords. By using "tdbsam" (which is the default now), we simple add a user using the following command.

> smbpasswd -a samba

New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:
Added user samba.

Remember, this password is different to the operating system password (although you can choose the same password if you wish). It is this password that samba uses and will look for.

4.Restart

Restart samba services. Its a little bit more annoying now as you have to do two commands.

> /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb restart
Shutting down SMB services:                                [ OK ]
Starting SMB services:                                     [ OK ]
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/nmb restart
Shutting down NMB services:                                [ OK ]
Starting NMB services:                                     [ OK ]

To keep things neat, I like to make a symbolic link on the filesystem from "/public" to the newly created super public folder.

> ln -s /home/samba/public /public