Samba

Naturally you need to have Samba installed on the machine you plan on using. There are a couple of ways to go about this. You can either open up the Ubuntu Software Center, search for Samba, and install Samba. Or you could open up Nautilus, right-click a folder, select Sharing Options, and the follow all of the prompts in order to get Samba correctly installed.

Once Samba is installed you can double check to make sure the Workgroup is correct by opening up the file /etc/samba/smb.conf and looking for the line:

workgroup = WORKGROUP

If you want (or need) to change the workgroup you belong to, change it there. After you make that change, save the file, and restart Samba with the command:

sudo service smbd restart

Firewall

If you happen to use Firestarter, you are going to need to uninstall it and install a different firewalling tool (GUFW is one of my favorites). If you leave Firestarter installed and you reboot your machine (after making this change) your machine very well may not boot. I will say that I have found Firestarter to include a few bugs (such as getting through it with Port 631 – printing) to make removal a good move. GUFW is a GNOME front-end for ufw which is a much more reliable firewalling tool (and just as easy to use).

Final piece

The last piece, before the configuration, is to install winbind. To do this issue the command sudo apt-get install winbind. You will need to enter your sudo password for the installation to complete. Once that is installed, you are ready to configure.

Configuration

The file you need to edit is /etc/nsswitch.conf. In this file you will see a line that looks like:

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4

You need to edit this line so that it looks like:

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] wins dns mdns4

Once you have done this, save the file, and restart networking. To restart networking issue the command:

/etc/init.d/networking restart

Taking advantage

Hopefully you know the host names of some of the machines on your network. If so, try to ping one of those machines by name (not IP address). You should get a positive response back. If you do not know the hostname of any machine on your network you can always click Places > Network and then double click on the Windows Network icon. Once in this window you will see the WORKGROUP icon. Double click on that and it should show all of the machines on your network that belong to that same Workgroup. Take one of those names and try to ping it. You should get positive results back.

After Samba is installed the smb.conf file will be around 533 lines long. Fear not. It’s much easier than it seems.

The smb.conf file is broken into sections. Each section will start with a line that looks like:

[TITLE]

Where TITLE is the actual title of the block. Each block represents either a configuration or a  share that other machines can connect to. You will, at minimum, have a global block and a single share.

Global

The global block is one of the more important blocks in your smb.conf file. This block defines the global configuration of your Samba server. This block begins with:

[global]

Within your blocks your configuration lines will be made up of:

option = value

statements.

The most important statements you will need in your global block are:
netbios name= NAME
workgroup = WORKGROUP_NAME
security = SECURITY_TYPE
encrypt passwords = YES/NO
smb passwd file = /path/to/smbpasswd
interfaces = ALLOWED_ADDRESSES

The values for each option above should be self explanatory. But there is one thing to note. If you are encrypting passwords you will need to add users (with passwords) with the smbpasswd command.
Within the global block one of the more important options is the security option. This option refers to authentication (how users will be able to log in). There are five different types of security:

• ADS – Active Directory Domain
• Domain – User verification through NT Primary or Backup Domain
• Server – Samba server passes on authentication to another server
• Share – Users do not have to enter username or password (until they try to access a specific directory)
• User – Users must provide valid username/password. This is the default.

Share Blocks

The next blocks will refer to individual shares. You will need a different block for each directory you want to share to Samba users. A typical share block will look like this:
[SHARE NAME]
comment = COMMENT
path = /path/to/share
writeable = YES/NO
create mode = NUMERIC VALUE
directory mode = NUMERIC VALUE
locking = YES/NO

Everything in caps above will be defined according to your needs. The tricky entries will be the create and directory modes. What this does is define permissions for any file created as well as the share directories. So the values will be in the form of 0700 or 0600 (depending upon your permission needs). Remember, you will need a share block for every directory you want to share out.

Naturally there are plenty of options that can be used in Samba. Many of these options will fall in the global block.

Printer Block

You can also define a block to share out printers. This block will start with:

[printers]

and will contain options like:
comment = COMMENT
path = /PATH/TO/PRINTER/SPOOL
browseable = YES/NO
guest ok = YES/NO
writable = YES/NO
printable = YES/NO
create mode = NUMERIC VALUE

Sample smb.conf

I have an external drive that I mount to /media/music and I share out to my home network with the following smb.conf file:
[global]
netbios name = MONKEYPANTZ
workgroup = MONKEYPANTZ
security = user
encrypt passwords = yes
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd
interfaces = 192.168.1.1/8
[wallen music]
comment = Music Library
path = /media/music
writeable = yes
create mode = 0600
directory mode = 0700
locking = yes

And that’s it. That is my entire smb.conf file. Granted I am only sharing out a single directory, but it shows how simple smb.conf can be to configure.