[CentOS] Easiest way to get samba up and working for Windows users?

Sat Feb 28 18:21:37 UTC 2009
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

Noob Centos Admin wrote:
> I'm seriously befuddled by Samba now.
> 
> I followed the good advice given and got the previous server set up nicely.
> 
> I did the same thing on another one and it refuses to work.
> 
> 1. useradd some users
> 2. gpasswd -a them to a "staff" group nd smbpasswd -a them
> 3. chmod g+s the staff directory
> 4. tested smbclient -L smbserver works
> 5. Windows user can see the Netbios name but not the share
> 6. Trying to access fails after timeout
> 7. Checked iptables/firewall not blocking
> 8. tail -f samba logs but nothing happens, it's like samba never see
> the incoming request. Note that it doesn't log anything with smbclient
> -L either.
> 9. mv the smb.conf and used a very basic one, similar to the one
> suggested in this thread.
> 10. yum remove and installed samba again just in case
> 
> Still not working.
> 
> I'm almost certain now that samba coder snuck in a devious randomizer
> that requires every single installation to only work after an random
> sequence of actions is taken. :(
> 
> Any hints or magic words?

First, I'll repeat my advice about using the SME server distribution 
which makes it as easy as filling in simple forms on web pages for 
users, groups, and shares and basically would take no other 
administration unless you want email or additional services.

But, if you want to do it the hard way, you probably have an 
authentication issue.  With the default security setting of 'user', the 
windows users must authenticate before they can even see a share - and 
things get weird if the name they used to log into windows is not the 
same as the linux/samba login name.   You can still map drives if you 
explicitly specify \\server\share, 'connect as other user' and fill in 
the name and password, but browsing for shares often doesn't work.  If 
you aren't too concerned about security, you can change this to 
'security = share' and then you can browse before authenticating, and 
also have the option to authenticate as different users when connecting 
to different shares on the same machine which you can't do in user or 
server modes.

I don't understand the log issue, though.  Are you sure smbd is running? 
    Nmbd would be enough to activate the netbios name - maybe you have a 
syntax error in smb.conf and smbd did not start.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com