Daniel's ramblings

Setting samba shares

Samba shares have always been a little confusing. Their authentication system doesn't use the UNIX accounts. This is a short guide for Ubuntu 16.04

  1. Install samba:

    sudo apt update
sudo apt install samba

  2. Set a username and password: sudo smbpasswd -a <user_name>

  3. Figure out what directory you wish to share. Mine was /media/media5/

  4. Copy the samba configuration to make a backup sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf ~

  5. and edit the config file to fit your needs sudo vim /etc/samba/smb.conf I wanted to make the share read only and write for my user. This is the settings I used.

    [share]
path = /media/media5
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes
read only = yes
write list = daniel bob steve
create mask = 755

    guest ok allows anonymous users. read only will make everyone have read only permissions. write list makes the users listed to be able to write too. However these users are those you set up with smbpasswd and not the UNIX accounts.

  6. restart samba sudo systemctl restart smbd

you can use testparm to check for syntax errors.

Resource:

Ubuntu help documentation