Samba - opening windows to a wider world

As root :

1. check the Samba configuration :
   testparm -sv 2>&1 | grep logging

   		logging = syslog

2. edit /etc/samba/smb.conf to fix the logging directive :
   • quick'n'dirty : comment it out
   • logging = file : logs are stored in the file specified with log file = /path/to/file.log (details)
   • logging = systemd : explicit
3. reload settings :
   systemctl restart smbd

1. Add to /etc/samba/smb.conf, in the global section :

   [global]
   	
   	min protocol = SMB2
   	client min protocol = SMB2
   	

   Depending on Samba version (/usr/sbin/samba --version, or dpkg -l samba) and Windows version, see server min protocol and server max protocol.
2. restart Samba :
   systemctl restart smbd

As said in the documentation : The Samba suite includes a number of different programs. Some of them operate in a client mode, others are server daemons . This suggests the client min protocol and client max protocol directives are mostly pointless when configuring up a file server (otherwise they would duplicate + conflict with their "server" counterparts : server min protocol and server max protocol).

Add to the [global] section :

# (explicit)
follow symlinks = yes

# allows following symlinks outside of the shared directory
wide links = yes

# related to uid/gid between server and client, but also collides with 'wide links' above when enabled
unix extensions = no

DOs :

DON'Ts :

Found this in old notes, not sure this is still true / useful :
				
If you just want to setup a network share with no special permissions (easiest but lowest security level), you just have to
					

						
switch from security = user to security = share
						
"chmod 777" the shared directory
					
				

1. apt install samba
2. samba -V

   Version 4.5.12-Debian

3. edit /etc/samba/smb.conf :

   [global]
   	hosts allow 192.168.56.1
   	interfaces = eth0
   	bind interfaces only = yes

4. Comment the whole Share Definitions section
5. Define your own share :

   Read-only :

   [myShare]
   	path = /directory/to/share
   	comment = this is a directory to share
   	guest ok = yes

   The browseable, read only / writable parameters are not necessary since default values apply.

   Writable :

   [myShare]
   	path = /directory/to/share
   	comment = this is a directory to share
   	guest ok = yes
   	writable = yes

6. Check settings :
   testparm
7. Reload Samba configuration :
   systemctl restart smbd.service
8. To be able to write into a share from a client, you may have to :
   chmod -R 777 /directory/to/share
   (told you his was dirty )

That's about it for a functional means to share files. The only "security" feature here is that it only allows 1 host, identified by its IP address. This is VERY POOR and only suited for temporary configuration, like while debugging other stuff !!!

[myShare]
	force user = kevin
	create mask = 0700
	directory mask = 0700

Action	Linux	FreeBSD
setup	apt install samba	Samba is available in the FreeBSD ports at /usr/ports/net/samba. A simple make install + make clean and it should work.
configuration file	/etc/samba/smb.conf	/usr/local/etc/smb.conf
check configuration	testparm	/usr/local/bin/testparm -s
start / stop / restart / status commands	systemctl start/stop/restart/status smbd.service
Logs	1 file per client machine : /var/log/samba/log.sambaClient

See hosts allow and hosts deny.

To configure user accounts and passwords, see smbpasswd.

smbstatus

smbclient

1. in /etc/fstab, declare the share and specify the username and password in the mount options
2. still in /etc/fstab, declare that shares can be mounted by users with the user option
3. as root, set the setuid bit on smbmnt and smbumount :
   chmod u+s /usr/bin/smbmnt /usr/bin/smbumount

Samba is based on the Microsoft SMB protocol for sharing files and printers. It seems that, historically, since the FATxx filesystems had limitations on file size, the same occurred on SMB. Sometimes, Unix clients can't use some of these large files through Samba.

To workaround this, the lfs option should be used in the mount options :