Samba – A short guide for sharing files and printers

Introduction

Samba is a service in Unix like operating systems which can be used to share folders across a Windows Network. Samba is a standard service among almost all the Linux distributions.Samba can perform the following operations.

1. Act as file server among Windows and Linux machines
2. Act as a printer sharing service
3. Act as a domain controller for a Windows network
4. Act as a client under a Windows domain

Details

Samba Port No	445
Folders related to Samba	/etc/samba/usr/lib/samba/usr/share/doc/samba-x.x.x/usr/log/samba
Samba Configuration file	/etc/samba/smb.conf
Starting, stopping and restarting Samba server	/etc/init.d/smb {start | stop | restart} (Red hat, Debian,SUSE) /etc/init.d/samba {start | stop | restart} (Ubuntu)
File-system	CIFS Driver file /sbin/mount.cifs Kernel Module cifs.ko
GUI Configuration tool	System-config-samba ( Red hat, Ubuntu)
Web Configuration tool	SWAT SWAT Port No 901 Service Part of xinetd or inetd Swat documents folder /usr/share/swat

Installation

Samba can be installed using the following commands.

For installing Samba on a Ubuntu or Debian  machine, use the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install samba

For installing Samba on a Fedora or any other Redhat based machine, use the following command:

$ yum install samba

If you want to install Samba from a source package, you can download it from the following link:

http://samba.org/samba/download/

Installing system-config-samba

system-config-samba is a GUI tool which is used to configure Samba server in a Linux machine with GUI. You can install it by using the appropriate commands below.

 $ yum install system-config-samba (for Redhat based) 

 $ sudo apt-get install system-config-samba (for Debian based) 

SWAT

SWAT is web based configuration tool which helps to configure the Samba server from a remote location. It is often used to configure complex smb.conf files. SWAT uses port no 901 to access the Samba server.

Installation

SWAT can be installed on a Redhat based OS using the following command:

 $ yum install samba-swat 

For a Debian based system the command would be as follows:

 $ sudo apt-get install swat 

Configuration of Samba using SWAT

Open a browser in a remote or local machine and enter the following address in the address bar

http://<ip-address of the samba server>:901

Now you can browse through the page to configure various options such as adding shares and adding printers.

User Management in Samba

Using command line

For authentication, Samba uses a separate set of users that differ from the Linux users. Hence we need to create Samba users for accessing the shares form a Samba server.

To create  a Samba user the following command can be used:

 $ smbpasswd -a  <username>

To delete a Samba user you can use the following command

 $ smbpasswd -x  <username>

Adding Samba users using system-config-samba

Use the following steps to add users

Goto Gnome menu-> System -> Administration-> Samba.

A window opens, click preferences-> Samba users.

Another Window opens, click add user.

Another window opens, Choose the Relevant Linux username from “UNIX username” Dropdown menu, Enter the Samba username as it would be used in a client machine.

Enter the password and enter it again to confirm.

Click “OK”.

You can find the screenshots below

Sharing Folders

Sharing folders using command line

The configuration file for Samba is /etc/samba/smb.conf.

For sharing a folder in Samba you can append the following lines to the file.

[<share-name>]
path =<share-path>
Browseable = yes
Guest ok = yes
read only = no
Valid users = <user1>,<user2> 

Restart the Samba service by using the following command:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Sharing folders using system-config-samba

The sharing can also be done using the GUI toot. You can share the folders using the following procedure:

Goto Gnome menu-> System-> Administration-> Samba

A window opens, Click on “Add  Share”

Another Window opens, In the “Basic” Tab enter the directory path, share name and Description about the share.

Choose whether the Share should be writable using the check box

You can also choose whether the share should be visible while browsing.

At the tab named “access” , click on “Only allow access to specific users” and check the user’s name for whom the access needs to be provided.

Otherwise click on “Allow access to everyone” to allow access to everyone.

You can find the screenshots below.

Accessing the Samba share from a Windows Client

Accessing the Samba share directly

Goto Start menu -> Run

Enter the ip-address of the Samba server.

Now a Windows explorer will open showing the shared folders from the Samba server

Now goto the folder showing with which it has been shared in the server

If you want to browse through the network

Goto Start Menu -> Computer, A window will open, Click on Network. It shows all the network computers, including your Samba server, connected to your PC. Now you can browse through the network.

To mount the share every time Windows boots, use the following steps:

Click on Start Menu.

Right click on My Computer and click Map Network Drive.

A Window will open, Choose a Drive letter and mention the path in “Folder” in /<ip-address>/ format.

Check the box “Reconnect at logon”.

If you want to enter the login credentials of the Samba server click on “Connect using a different User name” and enter the user-name and password.

Click Finish.

Accessing the Samba share from a Linux machine with Gnome

Accessing the Samba share directly

Goto Gnome menu-> Places -> Connect to server.

A window will open. Choose “Service type” as Windows share.

Enter the server’s Ip-address at the “Server” tab.

Share name of the folder at the “Share” tab.

Enter the Username.

Enter the domain name.

Click “Connect”.

Enter the password and click “Connect”.

You can view the screenshots below

If you want to browse through the network

Goto Gnome menu-> Places -> Network

A windows will open up showing “Windows Network”

Double click on “Windows Network” to browse through the windows network which contains Samba servers also

Click on the Samba server by identifying using the hostname in the list

To mount the share using Command line interface

Use the following command:

$ sudo mount -t cifs /<ip-address>/<share-name>/  /<mount-point> -o user=<username> 

To mount the share at every boot

Add the following line to the /etc/fstab file

//<ip-address>/<share-name>   /<mount-point>   cifs   user=<username>,password=<password>   0 0

Sharing printers

Sharing through command line

[ printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
browseable = yes
printable = yes 

Restart the Samba service by using the following command:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Configuring the shared printer on a Windows Client:

Goto Start menu-> Printers and faxes -> Add a printer.

A window will open, click next.

Select “A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer” and click next.

Select “Connect to this printer (or to browse for a printer, select this option and click next)”

Enter \\< ip-address >\<printer name as in Linux machine> and click next.

It will connect to the printer and may say that the driver is not installed (if driver is present in Windows xp it will proceed without driver installation).

Install the drivers.

It will prompt “Do you want to this printer as the default printer?”. Select your choice an click next.

Click finish.

Configuring the shared printer on a Linux Client with Gnome:

Go to Gnome menu-> System-> Administration-> Printing.

A window will open, Click new.

Another Window will open. At devices, drop down Network printer, Click “Windows Printer via Samba”.

At the right hand side, There will be a box with ‘smb://’. Here enter the ip-address and the printer name as  “smb:///”

Choose the driver and finish the installation.

Logging in Samba

Logs related to Samba can be found in the folder /var/log/samba. When we try to access the Samba share from another machine it creates a new file with the file name in the following format.

/var/log/samba/log.<hostname>

Associated services

nmbd

nmbd is a NetBIOS name server which is used to resolve NetBIOS names to IP addresses. It is a part of the Samba Suite and in many of the distros, nmbd daemon is automatically started when samba daemon is started.

nmbd can be started manually using the command:

 $ service nmb start ( For Redhat based machines) 

 $ /etc/init.d/nmbd start (For Ubuntu machines) 

Some useful commands related to Samba

findsmb

findsmd can be used to find the machines in the network which respond to smb queries.

testparm

testparm command can be used to test the Samba configuration in the server.

smbtree

This command can be used to list all the Samba and Windows file servers in the network.