Windows connect to ubuntu samba

The samba package is a meta-package intended to be installed on file and printer sharing servers. Clients do not need this meta-package (you are acting as a client if you need to access files on another computer). For example, installing samba is not necessary if you only need your Ubuntu system to do any of the following:

• Access shared folders, drives and printers on a Windows computer (that is, act as a client with Windows servers). To do this, you only need the smbfs plugin. See MountWindowsSharesPermanently for more information.

• Have your Windows computer use (via a network) a printer that is attached to a Linux computer. CUPS can be configured to make the printer accessible to the network.

• Share directories between two Linux computers. You can use NFS or setup an SSH server on one computer and access it from other computers using an scp or sftp client, or Places -> Connect to Server… and choose «SSH» as the service type.

Ubuntu Clients

Ubuntu and Gnome make it easy to access files on a Windows network share. Open the Places Menu, then click on Network. You will see a Windows network icon. Double-click to open it. The next window shows all the domains/workgroups found on your network. Inside each domain/workgroup you will see all the computers on the domain/workgroup with sharing enabled. Double-click on a computer icon to access its shares and files.

• If you want to be able to share folders with nautilus (the file browser), install the nautilus-share package (installed by default in Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop edition):

sudo apt-get install nautilus-share

Alternate: From the menu at the top select «Location» -> «Connect to a server». In the «Service type» pull down select «Windows share». Enter the server ip address in the «Server:» box and the share name in the «Share:» box. Click «Connect» and then «Connect» again on the second dialog box

Alternate 12.04: Double clicking on ‘Windows network’ did not work for me. So I went to ‘Go’ menu in the nautilus file browser and clicked ‘Location’. I got an address bar at the top of the window. I entered «smb://192.168.2.148» (substitute the IP address of your Samba server) — I was presented with user/password window — After typing in user/passwd I was able to see the samba shares on the server and browse the files/folders.

Note: The default installation of Samba does not synchronize passwords. You may have to run «smbpasswd» for each user that needs to have access to his Ubuntu home directory from Microsoft Windows.

Windows Clients (XP,Server,Vista, Win7)

Microsoft Windows clients connect and browse through their corresponding network interface.

Example: XP clients can open Windows Network Neighborhood or My Network Places to browse available SMB shares.

Samba Client — Manual Configuration

This section covers how to manually configure and connect to a SMB file server from an Ubuntu client. smbclient is a command line tool similar to a ftp connection while smbfs allows you to mount a SMB file share. Once a SMB share is mounted it acts similar to a local hard drive (you can access the SMB share with your file browser (nautilus, konqueror, thunar, other).

Connecting to a Samba File Server from the command line

Connecting from the command line is similar to a ftp connection.

List public SMB shares with

smbclient -L //server -U user

Connect to a SMB share with

smbclient //server/share -U user

Enter you user password.

You can connect directly with

smbclient //server/share -U user%password

but your password will show on the screen (less secure).

Once connected you will get a prompt that looks like this :

smb: \>

Type «help» , without quotes, at the prompt for a list of available commands.

Connecting using CIFS

CIFS is included in the smbfs package and is a replacement for smbfs (I know, the terminology here is a little confusing).

Reference : http://linux-cifs.samba.org/

As above, install by any method, smbfs, on Ubuntu 12.10, smbfs has been replaced by cifs-utils.

Allow non-root users to mount SMB shares

By default only root may mount SMB shares on the command line. To allow non-root users to mount SMB shares you could set the SUID, but I advise you configure sudo. You should configure sudo with visudo

You may either allow the group «users» to mount SMB shares, or add a group, samba, and add users you wish to allow to mount SMB shares to the samba group.

sudo groupadd samba
sudo adduser user samba

Change «user» to the username you wish to add to the samba group.

sudo visudo

In the «group» section add your group you wish to allow to mount SMB shares

Add a line  in the "group" section :
## Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL
%samba   ALL=(ALL) /bin/mount,/bin/umount,/sbin/mount.cifs,/sbin/umount.cifs

Change «%samba» to «%users» if you wish to allow members of the users group to mount SMB shares.

The following will mount the myshare folder on myserver to ~/mnt (it will be in your home directory):

mkdir ~/mnt
sudo mount -t cifs //myserver_ip_address/myshare ~/mnt -o username=samb_user,noexec

Note: «samba_user» = the user name on the samba server (may be different from your log-in name on the client).

The «noexec» option prevents executable scripts running from the SMB share.

You will be asked for BOTH your sudo and then your samba_user password.

To umount,

sudo umount ~/mnt

Automagically mount SMB shares

In order to have a share mounted automatically every time you reboot, you need to do the following:

With any editor, create a file containing your Windows/Samba user account details:

gksu gedit /etc/samba/user

KDE users must use kdesu rather than gksu and instead of Gedit they can use Kwrite as editor.

… it should contain two lines as follows:

username=samba_user
password=samba_user_password

Note: «samba_user» = the user name on the samba server (may be different from your log-in name on the client). «samba_user_password» is the password you assigned to the samba_user on the samba server.

Save the file and exit gedit.

Change the permissions on the file for security:

sudo chmod 0400 /etc/samba/user # permissions of 0400 = read only

Now create a directory where you want to mount your share (e.g. /media/samba_share):

sudo mkdir /media/samba_share

Now, using any editor, and add a line to /etc/fstab for your SMB share as follows:

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Add a line for your SMB share:

//myserver_ip_address/myshare  /media/samba_share  cifs  credentials=/etc/samba/user,noexec  0 0

The share will mount automatically when you boot. The «noexec» option prevents executable scripts running from the SMB share.

To mount the share now, without rebooting,

sudo mount /media/samba_share

You can unmount the share with :

sudo umount /media/samba_share

If you wish to increase security at the expense of convenience, use this line in /etc/fstab

//myserver_ip_address/myshare  /media/samba_share  cifs  noauto,credentials=/etc/samba/user,noexec  0 0

The noexec» option prevents executable scripts running from the SMB share.

Edit /etc/samba/user, remove the password (leave just the samba user).

Now the share will NOT automatically mount when you boot and you will be asked for your samba password.

Mount the share with :

sudo mount /media/samba_share

CIFS may cause a shutdown error.

CIFS VFS: Server not responding.

There is a fix in the troubleshooting section of this forum post.

Back to top

Connecting using SMBFS (deprecated)

Note: This method still works, but as outlined under the «CIFS» section above is «deprecated» (no longer maintained and pending removal from the kernel).

Mounting a share on the local filesystem allows you to work around programs that do not yet use GnomeVFS to browse remote shares transparently. To mount a SMB share, first install smbfs:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install smbfs

To allow non root accounts to mount shares, change the permissions on the smbmnt program thus:

sudo chmod u+s /usr/bin/smbmnt /usr/bin/smbumount

---

Note: This may be a security risk as after setting the SUID bit anyone can mount a SMB share. I advise you configure sudo, as above.

The working line in /etc/sudoers is as follows (see CIFS section above):

%samba   ALL=(ALL) /bin/mount,/bin/umount,/sbin/mount.cifs,/sbin/umount.cifs,/usr/bin/smbmount,/usr/bin/smbumount

This allows any user in the samba group to mount SMB shares (you will need to create a samba group and add users).

The following will mount the myshare folder on myserver to ~/mnt (it will be in your home directory):

---

mkdir ~/mnt
smbmount //myserver/myshare ~/mnt

To umount,

smbumount ~/mnt

In order to have a share mounted automatically every time you reboot, you need to do the following:

Open a shell as root

sudo -s

Create a file containing your Windows/Samba user account details:

vi /etc/samba/user

…it should contain two lines as follows:

username=george
password=secret

Change the permissions on the file for security:

chmod 0600 /etc/samba/user

Now create a directory where you want to mount your share (e.g. /mnt/data):

mkdir /mnt/data

Now edit the file system table (/etc/fstab) and add a line as follows:

//server/share   /mnt/data   smbfs   credentials=/etc/samba/user,rw,uid=bob   0   0

…where ‘bob’ is the non-root user you log into ubuntu with, ‘server’ is the name or address of the Windows machine and ‘share’ is the name of the share.

To mount the share now, just use the following command as root. It will mount automatically on subsequent reboots.

mount /mnt/data

to be continued…

Ubuntu Client

On the Ubuntu client using the menu at the top, go to «Places» -> «Network». You will see an icon «Windows network» and should be able to browse to your shared folder. You will be asked for a password, leave it blank. Click the «Connect button.

(no need for a password).

If you would like to mount your SMB share using your (server) hostname rather than the IP Address, edit /etc/hosts and add your samba server (syntax IP Address hostname).

192.168.1.100    hostname

Where «hostname» = the name of your samba server.

Windows Client

On Windows open «My Computer» and navigate to «My Network Places». Navigate to your Ubuntu server and your share will be available without a password.

Alternate : From the menu at the top select «Tools» -> «Map Network Drive». Select an available letter for your SMB share (Default is z: ). In the «Folder:» box enter \\samba_server_ipaddress\share. Tic (Select with the mouse) the option «Reconnect at login» if you want the share to be automatically mounted when you boot Windows. Click the «Finish» box. A dialog box will appear, enter your samba user name and password. Click «OK».

If you would like to mount your SMB share using your (server) hostname rather than the IP Address, edit C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and add your samba server (syntax IP Address hostname).

192.168.1.100    hostname

Where «hostname» = the name of your samba server.

• Data Centers

• Microsoft

• Open source

In my previous article, Interoperability: Getting started with Samba, I covered installing and configuring Samba shares on a Linux server. The real power of Samba comes when Windows clients can communicate with Linux file servers. In this article, I will cover how you can access Samba shares from both Linux and Windows clients.

Install the Samba client packages

To access Samba share from Linux clients we need to install a few Samba client packages.

On the client machine, install the samba-common and samba-client packages.

# yum install samba-client samba-common  -y

Check for available shares

Let’s check if we can access our shares from the server. We can use either the hostname or ip address of the server. If you use the hostname, make sure DNS is working.

# smbclient -U user -L 192.168.1.122

Enter SAMBA\user's password:

        Sharename       Type      Comment
        ---------       ----      -------
        print$          Disk      Printer Drivers
        myshare         Disk      my share
        IPC$            IPC       IPC Service (Samba 4.9.1)
        user      Disk      Home Directories

Reconnecting with SMB1 for workgroup listing.

        Server               Comment
        ---------            -------

        Workgroup            Master
        ---------            -------
        SAMBA                SAMBA-SERVER

Create a directory that we can use as our mount point. I’m going to create a directory under /mnt, but you can use any directory you would like to. You may need to configure SELinux on that directory.

# mkdir /mnt/myshare

Now, mount the share.

# mount -t cifs -o username=user //192.168.1.122/myshare /mnt/share

Password for user@//192.168.1.122/myshare:  ********

Now that we’ve mounted our share, we can check the mounts with the following command:

# df -h

Persistent mount

Let’s make that directory mount persistently so it can withstand a reboot. Using the text editor of your choice, edit the /etc/fstab file. You can do this in multiple ways, but I’m going to demonstrate two ways to mount the Samba share at boot in /etc/fstab.

# vim /etc/fstab

The first option provides a username and password for the Samba user in the fstab.

//192.168.1.122/myshare /mnt/share cifs username=user,password=password,_netdev 0  0

The other option is to create a credential file. You can call this file anything, but I would like to call it cred. I would like to place credentials files in the home directory of the user. In our demonstration it will be /home/user/.cred.

//192.168.1.122/myshare /mnt/share cifs credentials=/home/user/.cred,_netdev 0 0

The _netdev option is important since we are mounting a network device. Clients may hang during the boot process if the system encounters any difficulties with the network.

Now create that .cred file inside the user’s home directory.

# vim /home/user/.cred

Next, add the Samba user’s username and password.

username=user
password=password

Finally, mount all filesystems.

# mount -a

Access a share from a Windows client

I will be using Windows 10 as my client machine with a workgroup called SAMBA. We need to create a local user account on the Windows machine that matches the username and password of the Samba user account we created in my previous article. Although account creation is not necessary, this will make things simpler when accessing the share.

Like I mentioned above, this step is optional and you can skip it completely. Although there are multiple approaches to adding a new local user on a Windows machine, for the simplicity of this article I will be using PowerShell. Launch PowerShell as an administrator and issue following commands:

PS > $password = Read-Host -AsSecureString
PS > New-LocalUser -Name “user” -Password $password

Now that we have created a new local user account matching the Samba user account, we can log in to Windows with our newly created user account.

Access a share from Windows Explorer

To access the Samba share from Windows Explorer, start typing the IP address to our share in the search area. I am using the hostname of the Samba server. In my case, it is centos. You can also access the share by using the IP address of the Samba server.

You might be prompted to enter the username and password to access the share if you skipped the local user creation process. If you get prompted for credentials, enter the Samba username and password we created in the previous article.

You will need to enter the Samba share path every time you want to access the share. There is a better way to access the share by mapping a drive to Samba share in Windows.

Mapping a drive to a Samba share

To map a drive to the Samba share, open PowerShell and issue following command:

PS > NET USE M: \\centos\myshare

Wrap up

Accessing a Samba share on Linux and Windows is easy. With this basic setup, you will be able to access file shares from client machines in your network. With somewhat more configuration, you can deploy Samba shares in a domain environment. Samba can do more than file share. If you would like to learn more about Samba, read this article about Windows and Linux interoperability. This is a basic set up, but you can do so much more with Samba.

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Here are the steps on “How to install Samba on Ubuntu 20.04 and Fix Sharing with Windows 10”

1. Install Samba server
First, we need to install Samba by running this command

sudo apt-get install samba -y

2. Adding user to samba group
Now our Samba is running under smbd service. Next step, we need to add users to samba group

sudo smbpasswd -a username

3. Change samba configuration to works with Windows 10
Go edit file “/etc/samba/smb.conf” and edit this part to enable succesfull sharing with Windows 10 Network.

Add this in Global part

   passdb backend = tdbsam
   security = user

Enable interfaces by binding it with device IP address or eth0 or wlan0 (check with sudo ifconfig)

#### Networking ####

# The specific set of interfaces / networks to bind to
# This can be either the interface name or an IP address/netmask;
# interface names are normally preferred
interfaces = 192.168.100.63 wlp1s0

bind interfaces only = yes

For user part, we need to disable bad_user map and force user with our added user previously

#map to guest = bad user
force user = username

The last part, we can add folder to shared

[Users]
  path = put your path here
  browseable = yes
  read only = no
  force create mode = 0660
  force directory mode = 2770
  valid users = @username_here

Just in case you have messy samba configuration, as long as your are using the latest Ubuntu 20.04, this configuration will work like a charm.

This configuration will help to avoid problem to connect to Windows 10 SMB share or Samba file sharing not working

#
# Sample configuration file for the Samba suite for Debian GNU/Linux.
#
#
# This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the
# smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed
# here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options most of which
# are not shown in this example
#
# Some options that are often worth tuning have been included as
# commented-out examples in this file.
#  - When such options are commented with ";", the proposed setting
#    differs from the default Samba behaviour
#  - When commented with "#", the proposed setting is the default
#    behaviour of Samba but the option is considered important
#    enough to be mentioned here
#
# NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command
# "testparm" to check that you have not made any basic syntactic
# errors.

#======================= Global Settings =======================

[global]

## Browsing/Identification ###

# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
   workgroup = WORKGROUP
   passdb backend = tdbsam
   security = user

# server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field
   server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)

#### Networking ####

# The specific set of interfaces / networks to bind to
# This can be either the interface name or an IP address/netmask;
# interface names are normally preferred
interfaces = 192.168.100.63 wlp1s0

# Only bind to the named interfaces and/or networks; you must use the
# 'interfaces' option above to use this.
# It is recommended that you enable this feature if your Samba machine is
# not protected by a firewall or is a firewall itself.  However, this
# option cannot handle dynamic or non-broadcast interfaces correctly.
bind interfaces only = yes

#### Debugging/Accounting ####

# This tells Samba to use a separate log file for each machine
# that connects
   log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m

# Cap the size of the individual log files (in KiB).
   max log size = 1000

# We want Samba to only log to /var/log/samba/log.{smbd,nmbd}.
# Append syslog@1 if you want important messages to be sent to syslog too.
   logging = file

# Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace
   panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d

####### Authentication #######

# Server role. Defines in which mode Samba will operate. Possible
# values are "standalone server", "member server", "classic primary
# domain controller", "classic backup domain controller", "active
# directory domain controller".
#
# Most people will want "standalone server" or "member server".
# Running as "active directory domain controller" will require first
# running "samba-tool domain provision" to wipe databases and create a
# new domain.
   server role = standalone server

   obey pam restrictions = yes

# This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to sync the Unix
# password with the SMB password when the encrypted SMB password in the
# passdb is changed.
   unix password sync = yes

# For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following
# parameters must be set (thanks to Ian Kahan <<kahan@informatik.tu-muenchen.de> for
# sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Sarge).
   passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
   passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .

# This boolean controls whether PAM will be used for password changes
# when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in
# 'passwd program'. The default is 'no'.
   pam password change = yes

# This option controls how unsuccessful authentication attempts are mapped
# to anonymous connections
#   map to guest = bad user
force user = dev

# It specifies the location of the user's
# profile directory from the client point of view) The following
# required a [profiles] share to be setup on the samba server (see
# below)
;   logon path = \\%N\profiles\%U
# Another common choice is storing the profile in the user's home directory
# (this is Samba's default)
#   logon path = \\%N\%U\profile

# The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set
# It specifies the location of a user's home directory (from the client
# point of view)
;   logon drive = H:
#   logon home = \\%N\%U

# The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set
# It specifies the script to run during logon. The script must be stored
# in the [netlogon] share
# NOTE: Must be store in 'DOS' file format convention
;   logon script = logon.cmd

# This allows Unix users to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR
# RPC pipe.  The example command creates a user account with a disabled Unix
# password; please adapt to your needs
; add user script = /usr/sbin/adduser --quiet --disabled-password --gecos "" %u

# This allows machine accounts to be created on the domain controller via the
# SAMR RPC pipe.
# The following assumes a "machines" group exists on the system
; add machine script  = /usr/sbin/useradd -g machines -c "%u machine account" -d /var/lib/samba -s /bin/false %u

# This allows Unix groups to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR
# RPC pipe.
; add group script = /usr/sbin/addgroup --force-badname %g

############ Misc ############

# Using the following line enables you to customise your configuration
# on a per machine basis. The %m gets replaced with the netbios name
# of the machine that is connecting
;   include = /home/samba/etc/smb.conf.%m

# Some defaults for winbind (make sure you're not using the ranges
# for something else.)
;   idmap config * :              backend = tdb
;   idmap config * :              range   = 3000-7999
;   idmap config YOURDOMAINHERE : backend = tdb
;   idmap config YOURDOMAINHERE : range   = 100000-999999
;   template shell = /bin/bash

# Setup usershare options to enable non-root users to share folders
# with the net usershare command.

# Maximum number of usershare. 0 means that usershare is disabled.
#   usershare max shares = 100

# Allow users who've been granted usershare privileges to create
# public shares, not just authenticated ones
   usershare allow guests = yes

#======================= Share Definitions =======================

# Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit)
# to enable the default home directory shares. This will share each
# user's home directory as \\server\username
;[homes]
;   comment = Home Directories
;   browseable = no

# By default, the home directories are exported read-only. Change the
# next parameter to 'no' if you want to be able to write to them.
;   read only = yes

# File creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to
# create files with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775.
;   create mask = 0700

# Directory creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to
# create dirs. with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775.
;   directory mask = 0700

# By default, \\server\username shares can be connected to by anyone
# with access to the samba server.
# Un-comment the following parameter to make sure that only "username"
# can connect to \\server\username
# This might need tweaking when using external authentication schemes
;   valid users = %S

# Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons
# (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.)
;[netlogon]
;   comment = Network Logon Service
;   path = /home/samba/netlogon
;   guest ok = yes
;   read only = yes

# Un-comment the following and create the profiles directory to store
# users profiles (see the "logon path" option above)
# (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.)
# The path below should be writable by all users so that their
# profile directory may be created the first time they log on
;[profiles]
;   comment = Users profiles
;   path = /home/samba/profiles
;   guest ok = no
;   browseable = no
;   create mask = 0600
;   directory mask = 0700

[printers]
   comment = All Printers
   browseable = no
   path = /var/spool/samba
   printable = yes
   guest ok = no
   read only = yes
   create mask = 0700

# Windows clients look for this share name as a source of downloadable
# printer drivers
[print$]
   comment = Printer Drivers
   path = /var/lib/samba/printers
   browseable = yes
   read only = yes
   guest ok = no
# Uncomment to allow remote administration of Windows print drivers.
# You may need to replace 'lpadmin' with the name of the group your
# admin users are members of.
# Please note that you also need to set appropriate Unix permissions
# to the drivers directory for these users to have write rights in it
;   write list = root, @lpadmin

[Users]
  path = put your path here
  browseable = yes
  read only = no
  force create mode = 0660
  force directory mode = 2770
  valid users = @username_here 

4. Restart samba service

sudo service smbd restart
sudo service nmbd restart

5. Open Ubuntu Samba folder from Windows 10
Go to your network and access to your IP from path \

• 

6. BONUS: Enable follow symlinks in samba folder

To enable symbolic link path or shortcut in Samba, you can add these configuration

[global]
allow insecure wide links = yes

[YouShareFolder]
follow symlinks = yes
wide links = yes