[Samba] new user introduction, and a few questions

[kendell clark]

hi all
My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
linux, which you can learn more about at http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
I've been struggling to come up with a default samba configuration file
that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
all. The results have been mixed. I'm going to attach the samba config
file I install into the built sonar images, as well as my
/etc/nssswitch.conf file. I did have samba working for about two months,
between my desktop and my fiance's windows 7 computer but after a samba
update it stopped working. The config file was the same, but I started
getting errors. They're below. Whenever I try to access anything on
mellisa's computer now I get either "failed to retrieve share list from
server: no such file or directory" or "failed to retrieve share list
from server. Invalid argument. Please select another viewer and try
again. That last one stumps me because it makes no sense. I thought
there might have been something wrong with either samba or the gvfs or
filemanager samba plugin (I use the mate desktop) but reinstalling them
didn't help.
My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
I don't use it myself I'm strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
for my fiance a lot, and I install it on my laptop periodically to test
samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
with no problems, prompting for a user name and password. Samba doesn't.
It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them. My next
question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
connect with? My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
looks like
$admin$
c$
f$
Users
The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply. If
I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
that aren't supposed to be used. In order to access flash drives,
external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these? And if
so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
Thanks for any help
Kendell Clark

[Xen]

Post by kendell clark
hi all
My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
linux, which you can learn more about at http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
I've been struggling to come up with a default samba configuration file
that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
all.

Basically you want a configuration for the local systems running your
distribution that will share stuff in a certain default way?

Or are you also concerned with importing stuff from the other computers?

Importing stuff might be an issue as it depends on the GUI of your
distribution? What I mean is that e.g. Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is rather
user friendly but I would not suggest it is ready for everything such as
mounting random shares from other servers? I haven't tried in full.

I do know Mint supports the USERSHARE thing and will allow people to
share their own folders from the GUI as long as you don't mess with it
behind the scenes (e.g. using a net command yourself) because it doesn't
sync that.

So I do not know how good the mounting experience is from Linux.

Personally I am trying to fix it as much as possible from my own project
in such a way that the names of the shares are almost incapable of being
changed (by a regular user).

A convient mount dialog, that also reinstates a mount on login, to my
knowledge and mind, doesn't really exist yet.

This is not Samba, this is mount.cifs, and the GUI configuration
whatever Distro or DE uses.

Post by kendell clark
My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
I don't use it myself I'm strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
for my fiance a lot, and I install it on my laptop periodically to test
samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
with no problems, prompting for a user name and password.

You mean for shares that were already configured previously and are now
slightly changed on the "server"?

Post by kendell clark
Samba doesn't.
It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them.

This is not really Samba, again, I am not meaning to be rude.

But Samba has very little to do with actually /accessing/ files (or
shares).

Most configuration is done by GUI environments that try to make some of
it work.

Now I realize the "client" side of things is also important. I am just
wishing to elude that the user side of this with regards to this, is
actually a componenent of your desktop environment (mate, as you call
it).

Post by kendell clark
My next
question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
connect with?

I personally consider the HomeGroup a very detrimental thing. They have
broken network-browsing, apparently, for regular fileshares and won't
even allow you to see the hosts on the network anymore, instead opening
webpages to configure routers and such, if these can be found.

If anything, I would want to change Windows computers such that regular
browsing works again; that will solve a lot of problems. Even among
Windows computers themselves, HomeGroup is terribly annoying and
inconvenient.

It appears the only way from e.g. a Windows 10 computer to access any
shares on the network, is to use a direct access link like
\\server\share. That is the most inconvenient thing there has ever been
for a Windows user. I do not know how to turn HomeGroup (In Windows 10)
off myself, but I would really stay away from it if I were you, rather
than try to incorporate it in your system (although a best of both
worlds may be possible if you do want to support it).

"Support" is not the same as "Wanting to use it".

I don't get the Windows filesharing thing anymore. I must be getting old
(35 now ;-)).

Post by kendell clark
My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
looks like
$admin$
c$
f$
Users
The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply.

I take it your c$ and f$ are complete volume shares? I mean a complete
"partition" with a drive letter is getting shared?

I have no clue why that wouldn't mount, I have not tried it myself,
sorry. But in general it seems like the stuff you want to mount cannot
end with a $ sign?

Post by kendell clark
If
I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
that aren't supposed to be used.

Ah, yes.

Post by kendell clark
In order to access flash drives,
external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these?

Sure, why not. Do you mean shares from Windows computers, or shares from
your own systems?

You ask about Samba access, not samba sharing.

There is no inhibition in Samba (mount.cifs) to mount shared directories
from other hosts. The inhibition is in how convenient the user interface
of the local system is going to be in configuring all of that (and not
getting fixed with a solution that is unchangable by a regular user).

I am not knowledgeable enough yet about the GVFS system. I do know you
can sufficiently configure stuff for display in fstab: there are options
for choosing the name that something will have in your GUI, I take it
this is the same for Mate as it is for Cinnamon.

x-gvfs-show and x-gvfs-name come to mind. Look it up, it will help, I
guess.

But these are "root" access things that mess up fstab. I am sure it is
also possible to get stuff mounted in /media/user/, I just don't know
how good that will be.

You will need to find a way to either integrate the "Gnome Automounter"
(using /media/user) or by having a custom solution that adds and changes
things in fstab to be able to pass those "pretty" parameters to
Mate/Cinnamon.

However, I do not know if a solution exists that will be so convenient
that it asks your for a password when you log in.

That also doesn't exist for mounting crypt shares.

Not really. Not very well. If I put something in crypttab, SystemD will
bug me with its unlocking, even it is set to noauto and nofail. SystemD
is not a very good beast.

So I cannot put those shares (or cryptdevices) in fstab or crypttab the
way I want to.

And then the mounting feature from Cinnamon also won't work. Anyway.

Post by kendell clark
And if
so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
Thanks for any help

Like I said, I am a little angry with myself for not making it more
clear in a nice way, that most of the user interface stuff doesn't
really belong to Samba in that sense ;-).

Regards.

But you have my sympathy, I am trying to do much of the same thing
currently with Cinnamon, but just dealing with a system of fixed mounts
that I want to have the user to have no say about ;-).

Of course, having actual convenience would be much nicer.

Regards.

[kendell clark]

hi
Basically I'm trying to come up with a default config file that will
allow people to access their stuff that reside on windows computers,
macs or linux computers from across the network. I know windows uses the
"WORKGROUP" name by default unless you change it, but one thing I've
noticed is that samba can't simply query windows for the info it needs,
it has to be set explicitly. Windows is somehow able to figure this
stuff out. I'm going to guess that the way windows does this is some
patented ultra secret method that samba can't use or it would. I don't
know if it's possible to come up with a one size fits all config file,
but is it possible to come up with one that will work with most
"default" windows installations where the user hasn't changed the
settings from the way they're initially set? I'm new to all of this, so
if there's good docs on all of this, just point me to them and I'll get
out of your hair.

Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by Xen

Post by kendell clark
hi all
My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
linux, which you can learn more about at http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
I've been struggling to come up with a default samba configuration file
that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
all.

Basically you want a configuration for the local systems running your
distribution that will share stuff in a certain default way?
Or are you also concerned with importing stuff from the other computers?
Importing stuff might be an issue as it depends on the GUI of your
distribution? What I mean is that e.g. Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is rather
user friendly but I would not suggest it is ready for everything such
as mounting random shares from other servers? I haven't tried in full.
I do know Mint supports the USERSHARE thing and will allow people to
share their own folders from the GUI as long as you don't mess with it
behind the scenes (e.g. using a net command yourself) because it
doesn't sync that.
So I do not know how good the mounting experience is from Linux.
Personally I am trying to fix it as much as possible from my own
project in such a way that the names of the shares are almost
incapable of being changed (by a regular user).
A convient mount dialog, that also reinstates a mount on login, to my
knowledge and mind, doesn't really exist yet.
This is not Samba, this is mount.cifs, and the GUI configuration
whatever Distro or DE uses.

Post by kendell clark
My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
I don't use it myself I'm strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
for my fiance a lot, and I install it on my laptop periodically to test
samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
with no problems, prompting for a user name and password.

You mean for shares that were already configured previously and are
now slightly changed on the "server"?

Post by kendell clark
Samba doesn't.
It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them.

This is not really Samba, again, I am not meaning to be rude.
But Samba has very little to do with actually /accessing/ files (or
shares).
Most configuration is done by GUI environments that try to make some
of it work.
Now I realize the "client" side of things is also important. I am just
wishing to elude that the user side of this with regards to this, is
actually a componenent of your desktop environment (mate, as you call
it).

Post by kendell clark
My next
question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
connect with?

I personally consider the HomeGroup a very detrimental thing. They
have broken network-browsing, apparently, for regular fileshares and
won't even allow you to see the hosts on the network anymore, instead
opening webpages to configure routers and such, if these can be found.
If anything, I would want to change Windows computers such that
regular browsing works again; that will solve a lot of problems. Even
among Windows computers themselves, HomeGroup is terribly annoying and
inconvenient.
It appears the only way from e.g. a Windows 10 computer to access any
shares on the network, is to use a direct access link like
\\server\share. That is the most inconvenient thing there has ever
been for a Windows user. I do not know how to turn HomeGroup (In
Windows 10) off myself, but I would really stay away from it if I were
you, rather than try to incorporate it in your system (although a best
of both worlds may be possible if you do want to support it).
"Support" is not the same as "Wanting to use it".
I don't get the Windows filesharing thing anymore. I must be getting
old (35 now ;-)).

Post by kendell clark
My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
looks like
$admin$
c$
f$
Users
The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply.

I take it your c$ and f$ are complete volume shares? I mean a complete
"partition" with a drive letter is getting shared?
I have no clue why that wouldn't mount, I have not tried it myself,
sorry. But in general it seems like the stuff you want to mount cannot
end with a $ sign?

Post by kendell clark
If
I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
that aren't supposed to be used.

Ah, yes.

Post by kendell clark
In order to access flash drives,
external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these?

Sure, why not. Do you mean shares from Windows computers, or shares
from your own systems?
You ask about Samba access, not samba sharing.
There is no inhibition in Samba (mount.cifs) to mount shared
directories from other hosts. The inhibition is in how convenient the
user interface of the local system is going to be in configuring all
of that (and not getting fixed with a solution that is unchangable by
a regular user).
I am not knowledgeable enough yet about the GVFS system. I do know you
can sufficiently configure stuff for display in fstab: there are
options for choosing the name that something will have in your GUI, I
take it this is the same for Mate as it is for Cinnamon.
x-gvfs-show and x-gvfs-name come to mind. Look it up, it will help, I
guess.
But these are "root" access things that mess up fstab. I am sure it is
also possible to get stuff mounted in /media/user/, I just don't know
how good that will be.
You will need to find a way to either integrate the "Gnome
Automounter" (using /media/user) or by having a custom solution that
adds and changes things in fstab to be able to pass those "pretty"
parameters to Mate/Cinnamon.
However, I do not know if a solution exists that will be so convenient
that it asks your for a password when you log in.
That also doesn't exist for mounting crypt shares.
Not really. Not very well. If I put something in crypttab, SystemD
will bug me with its unlocking, even it is set to noauto and nofail.
SystemD is not a very good beast.
So I cannot put those shares (or cryptdevices) in fstab or crypttab
the way I want to.
And then the mounting feature from Cinnamon also won't work. Anyway.

Post by kendell clark
And if
so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
Thanks for any help

Like I said, I am a little angry with myself for not making it more
clear in a nice way, that most of the user interface stuff doesn't
really belong to Samba in that sense ;-).
Regards.
But you have my sympathy, I am trying to do much of the same thing
currently with Cinnamon, but just dealing with a system of fixed
mounts that I want to have the user to have no say about ;-).
Of course, having actual convenience would be much nicer.
Regards.

[coffeeking]

hi

Not just yet. I've set up a windows 10 instance on my desktop to test
with. It's not activated so I've got a month to test, will probably only
keep it around a couple of days. How is windows doing this? When I go to
connect to mellisa's computer which is running windows 7, even with the
workgroup name changed from the default windows finds it and connects. I
try the same on linux and I get "cannot mount windows share. No such
file or directory." It's maddening. I'm not complaining, I'm just
curious. Why is windows able to autoconfigure itself, and samba isn't?
Or is it, and I haven't set the right options?

Thanks

Kendell Clark

Welcome kendell, i just signed up today my self... Have you gotten your issue resolved? I see a lot of info but I cant tell who is who, it doesn't say..
Chad

Post by kendell clark
hi
Basically I'm trying to come up with a default config file that will
allow people to access their stuff that reside on windows computers,
macs or linux computers from across the network. I know windows uses the
"WORKGROUP" name by default unless you change it, but one thing I've
noticed is that samba can't simply query windows for the info it needs,
it has to be set explicitly. Windows is somehow able to figure this
stuff out. I'm going to guess that the way windows does this is some
patented ultra secret method that samba can't use or it would. I don't
know if it's possible to come up with a one size fits all config file,
but is it possible to come up with one that will work with most
"default" windows installations where the user hasn't changed the
settings from the way they're initially set? I'm new to all of this, so
if there's good docs on all of this, just point me to them and I'll get
out of your hair.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by Xen

Post by kendell clark
hi all
My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
linux, which you can learn more about at http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
I've been struggling to come up with a default samba configuration file
that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
all.

Basically you want a configuration for the local systems running your
distribution that will share stuff in a certain default way?
Or are you also concerned with importing stuff from the other computers?
Importing stuff might be an issue as it depends on the GUI of your
distribution? What I mean is that e.g. Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is rather
user friendly but I would not suggest it is ready for everything such
as mounting random shares from other servers? I haven't tried in full.
I do know Mint supports the USERSHARE thing and will allow people to
share their own folders from the GUI as long as you don't mess with it
behind the scenes (e.g. using a net command yourself) because it
doesn't sync that.
So I do not know how good the mounting experience is from Linux.
Personally I am trying to fix it as much as possible from my own
project in such a way that the names of the shares are almost
incapable of being changed (by a regular user).
A convient mount dialog, that also reinstates a mount on login, to my
knowledge and mind, doesn't really exist yet.
This is not Samba, this is mount.cifs, and the GUI configuration
whatever Distro or DE uses.

Post by kendell clark
My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
I don't use it myself I'm strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
for my fiance a lot, and I install it on my laptop periodically to test
samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
with no problems, prompting for a user name and password.

You mean for shares that were already configured previously and are
now slightly changed on the "server"?

Post by kendell clark
Samba doesn't.
It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them.

This is not really Samba, again, I am not meaning to be rude.
But Samba has very little to do with actually /accessing/ files (or
shares).
Most configuration is done by GUI environments that try to make some
of it work.
Now I realize the "client" side of things is also important. I am just
wishing to elude that the user side of this with regards to this, is
actually a componenent of your desktop environment (mate, as you call
it).

Post by kendell clark
My next
question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
connect with?

I personally consider the HomeGroup a very detrimental thing. They
have broken network-browsing, apparently, for regular fileshares and
won't even allow you to see the hosts on the network anymore, instead
opening webpages to configure routers and such, if these can be found.
If anything, I would want to change Windows computers such that
regular browsing works again; that will solve a lot of problems. Even
among Windows computers themselves, HomeGroup is terribly annoying and
inconvenient.
It appears the only way from e.g. a Windows 10 computer to access any
shares on the network, is to use a direct access link like
\\server\share. That is the most inconvenient thing there has ever
been for a Windows user. I do not know how to turn HomeGroup (In
Windows 10) off myself, but I would really stay away from it if I were
you, rather than try to incorporate it in your system (although a best
of both worlds may be possible if you do want to support it).
"Support" is not the same as "Wanting to use it".
I don't get the Windows filesharing thing anymore. I must be getting
old (35 now ;-)).

Post by kendell clark
My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
looks like
$admin$
c$
f$
Users
The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply.

I take it your c$ and f$ are complete volume shares? I mean a complete
"partition" with a drive letter is getting shared?
I have no clue why that wouldn't mount, I have not tried it myself,
sorry. But in general it seems like the stuff you want to mount cannot
end with a $ sign?

Post by kendell clark
If
I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
that aren't supposed to be used.

Ah, yes.

Post by kendell clark
In order to access flash drives,
external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these?

Sure, why not. Do you mean shares from Windows computers, or shares
from your own systems?
You ask about Samba access, not samba sharing.
There is no inhibition in Samba (mount.cifs) to mount shared
directories from other hosts. The inhibition is in how convenient the
user interface of the local system is going to be in configuring all
of that (and not getting fixed with a solution that is unchangable by
a regular user).
I am not knowledgeable enough yet about the GVFS system. I do know you
can sufficiently configure stuff for display in fstab: there are
options for choosing the name that something will have in your GUI, I
take it this is the same for Mate as it is for Cinnamon.
x-gvfs-show and x-gvfs-name come to mind. Look it up, it will help, I
guess.
But these are "root" access things that mess up fstab. I am sure it is
also possible to get stuff mounted in /media/user/, I just don't know
how good that will be.
You will need to find a way to either integrate the "Gnome
Automounter" (using /media/user) or by having a custom solution that
adds and changes things in fstab to be able to pass those "pretty"
parameters to Mate/Cinnamon.
However, I do not know if a solution exists that will be so convenient
that it asks your for a password when you log in.
That also doesn't exist for mounting crypt shares.
Not really. Not very well. If I put something in crypttab, SystemD
will bug me with its unlocking, even it is set to noauto and nofail.
SystemD is not a very good beast.
So I cannot put those shares (or cryptdevices) in fstab or crypttab
the way I want to.
And then the mounting feature from Cinnamon also won't work. Anyway.

Post by kendell clark
And if
so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
Thanks for any help

Like I said, I am a little angry with myself for not making it more
clear in a nice way, that most of the user interface stuff doesn't
really belong to Samba in that sense ;-).
Regards.
But you have my sympathy, I am trying to do much of the same thing
currently with Cinnamon, but just dealing with a system of fixed
mounts that I want to have the user to have no say about ;-).
Of course, having actual convenience would be much nicer.
Regards.

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[Xen]

Post by coffeeking
hi
Not just yet. I've set up a windows 10 instance on my desktop to test
with. It's not activated so I've got a month to test, will probably
only keep it around a couple of days. How is windows doing this? When
I go to connect to mellisa's computer which is running windows 7, even
with the workgroup name changed from the default windows finds it and
connects. I try the same on linux and I get "cannot mount windows
share. No such file or directory." It's maddening. I'm not
complaining, I'm just curious. Why is windows able to autoconfigure
itself, and samba isn't? Or is it, and I haven't set the right
options?

There is no one Linux. Cinnamon will do it differently than KDE. There
aren't very many other options, but the one you use determines what you
can do. It's not always everything.

Mounting shares from the command line, for instance, does not deal with
workgroups at all!.

mount -t cifs //host/share /mnt -o username <-- is completely
uncaring about what workgroup there might be.

As far as I can tell at least.

[coffeeking]

hi

Completely agree about windows. From what I'm hearing on this list
there's no "default" file that will do what I want? If I'm understanding
this right it's not how samba is configured so much as it is what the
gui tools will let me do? I use the mate desktop, with the caja file
manager and it's caja share extension. I've tried a few things,
connecting to smb:blackfang. This will think for a few seconds and then
return with "no such file or directory". I'm sorry to keep going back to
the same circles, I'm just trying to understand how these things work.
I'd like to come up with a smb.conf file which will work for most users,
since a lot of them connect to windows computers or linux boxes running
a samba server. Is this possible? dolphin isn't an option for me because
orca, the linux gtk screen reader, can't read it. I do know that trying
to connect to windows computers over the network with nautilus or caja
yields the "no such file or directory" error or "connection timed out".
I'm missing something, just not sure what. If I'm being annoying, please
don't hesitate to point me to docs. It also sounds like results may vary
based on what linux distribution you use. Sonar is based on the manjaro
linux distro which is in turn based on arch, if that helps.

Thanks

Kendell Clark

Windows is built to be generically compatible and configurable for the common person. This does not make well for stability, function, or security. Linux is built for everything but ease... To this end there are gui apps that allow you to easily configure samba. Nothing "just works" but when it does, it will never fail under most circumstances. Windows it will work one day and not the next with absolutely no reason... Now there were some changes to windows security settings that make it less interoperable with samba (not samba's fault) samba has also made security changes to make samba more secure. One utility i have used for 10 years and has been wonderful is "Webmin" its great for configuring most of the basic linux systems and most all of the basic server software. I highly recommend it..
So after setting a share checking passwords and rights i spent 20 hours trying to figure out why i couldnt access share and found on centos(my distro) in addition to the samba share you also have to do a "chcon -t samba_share_t /path" to turn on the samba security flag or it wont allow samba to access the directory.. Now in my browser i cannot see the samba system but i have no problem accessing it. This may be a result of that IPC$ share that you sometimes get i think its a pc share that windows does automatically that you may have to share the "computer" in order for
It to be viewable like windows does. This is a function i want on mine so maybe we can work on it together... Im out and about right now but ill sent you a couple things to try when I get home.
Chad
Sent from my iPhone

hi
Not just yet. I've set up a windows 10 instance on my desktop to test with. It's not activated so I've got a month to test, will probably only keep it around a couple of days. How is windows doing this? When I go to connect to mellisa's computer which is running windows 7, even with the workgroup name changed from the default windows finds it and connects. I try the same on linux and I get "cannot mount windows share. No such file or directory." It's maddening. I'm not complaining, I'm just curious. Why is windows able to autoconfigure itself, and samba isn't? Or is it, and I haven't set the right options?
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Welcome kendell, i just signed up today my self... Have you gotten your issue resolved? I see a lot of info but I cant tell who is who, it doesn't say..
Chad

Post by kendell clark
hi
Basically I'm trying to come up with a default config file that will
allow people to access their stuff that reside on windows computers,
macs or linux computers from across the network. I know windows uses the
"WORKGROUP" name by default unless you change it, but one thing I've
noticed is that samba can't simply query windows for the info it needs,
it has to be set explicitly. Windows is somehow able to figure this
stuff out. I'm going to guess that the way windows does this is some
patented ultra secret method that samba can't use or it would. I don't
know if it's possible to come up with a one size fits all config file,
but is it possible to come up with one that will work with most
"default" windows installations where the user hasn't changed the
settings from the way they're initially set? I'm new to all of this, so
if there's good docs on all of this, just point me to them and I'll get
out of your hair.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by Xen

Post by kendell clark
hi all
My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
linux, which you can learn more about at http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
I've been struggling to come up with a default samba configuration file
that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
all.

Basically you want a configuration for the local systems running your
distribution that will share stuff in a certain default way?
Or are you also concerned with importing stuff from the other computers?
Importing stuff might be an issue as it depends on the GUI of your
distribution? What I mean is that e.g. Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is rather
user friendly but I would not suggest it is ready for everything such
as mounting random shares from other servers? I haven't tried in full.
I do know Mint supports the USERSHARE thing and will allow people to
share their own folders from the GUI as long as you don't mess with it
behind the scenes (e.g. using a net command yourself) because it
doesn't sync that.
So I do not know how good the mounting experience is from Linux.
Personally I am trying to fix it as much as possible from my own
project in such a way that the names of the shares are almost
incapable of being changed (by a regular user).
A convient mount dialog, that also reinstates a mount on login, to my
knowledge and mind, doesn't really exist yet.
This is not Samba, this is mount.cifs, and the GUI configuration
whatever Distro or DE uses.

Post by kendell clark
My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
I don't use it myself I'm strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
for my fiance a lot, and I install it on my laptop periodically to test
samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
with no problems, prompting for a user name and password.

You mean for shares that were already configured previously and are
now slightly changed on the "server"?

Post by kendell clark
Samba doesn't.
It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them.

This is not really Samba, again, I am not meaning to be rude.
But Samba has very little to do with actually /accessing/ files (or
shares).
Most configuration is done by GUI environments that try to make some
of it work.
Now I realize the "client" side of things is also important. I am just
wishing to elude that the user side of this with regards to this, is
actually a componenent of your desktop environment (mate, as you call
it).

Post by kendell clark
My next
question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
connect with?

I personally consider the HomeGroup a very detrimental thing. They
have broken network-browsing, apparently, for regular fileshares and
won't even allow you to see the hosts on the network anymore, instead
opening webpages to configure routers and such, if these can be found.
If anything, I would want to change Windows computers such that
regular browsing works again; that will solve a lot of problems. Even
among Windows computers themselves, HomeGroup is terribly annoying and
inconvenient.
It appears the only way from e.g. a Windows 10 computer to access any
shares on the network, is to use a direct access link like
\\server\share. That is the most inconvenient thing there has ever
been for a Windows user. I do not know how to turn HomeGroup (In
Windows 10) off myself, but I would really stay away from it if I were
you, rather than try to incorporate it in your system (although a best
of both worlds may be possible if you do want to support it).
"Support" is not the same as "Wanting to use it".
I don't get the Windows filesharing thing anymore. I must be getting
old (35 now ;-)).

Post by kendell clark
My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
looks like
$admin$
c$
f$
Users
The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply.

I take it your c$ and f$ are complete volume shares? I mean a complete
"partition" with a drive letter is getting shared?
I have no clue why that wouldn't mount, I have not tried it myself,
sorry. But in general it seems like the stuff you want to mount cannot
end with a $ sign?

Post by kendell clark
If
I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
that aren't supposed to be used.

Ah, yes.

Post by kendell clark
In order to access flash drives,
external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these?

Sure, why not. Do you mean shares from Windows computers, or shares
from your own systems?
You ask about Samba access, not samba sharing.
There is no inhibition in Samba (mount.cifs) to mount shared
directories from other hosts. The inhibition is in how convenient the
user interface of the local system is going to be in configuring all
of that (and not getting fixed with a solution that is unchangable by
a regular user).
I am not knowledgeable enough yet about the GVFS system. I do know you
can sufficiently configure stuff for display in fstab: there are
options for choosing the name that something will have in your GUI, I
take it this is the same for Mate as it is for Cinnamon.
x-gvfs-show and x-gvfs-name come to mind. Look it up, it will help, I
guess.
But these are "root" access things that mess up fstab. I am sure it is
also possible to get stuff mounted in /media/user/, I just don't know
how good that will be.
You will need to find a way to either integrate the "Gnome
Automounter" (using /media/user) or by having a custom solution that
adds and changes things in fstab to be able to pass those "pretty"
parameters to Mate/Cinnamon.
However, I do not know if a solution exists that will be so convenient
that it asks your for a password when you log in.
That also doesn't exist for mounting crypt shares.
Not really. Not very well. If I put something in crypttab, SystemD
will bug me with its unlocking, even it is set to noauto and nofail.
SystemD is not a very good beast.
So I cannot put those shares (or cryptdevices) in fstab or crypttab
the way I want to.
And then the mounting feature from Cinnamon also won't work. Anyway.

Post by kendell clark
And if
so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
Thanks for any help

Like I said, I am a little angry with myself for not making it more
clear in a nice way, that most of the user interface stuff doesn't
really belong to Samba in that sense ;-).
Regards.
But you have my sympathy, I am trying to do much of the same thing
currently with Cinnamon, but just dealing with a system of fixed
mounts that I want to have the user to have no say about ;-).
Of course, having actual convenience would be much nicer.
Regards.

--
To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba

--
To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba

[kendell clark]

hi
Ok, I've now got more info. Doing smbclient -L blackfang returns the
following error. unknown name switch type dns. session setup failed.
NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE. This is frustrating. Isn't this supposed to
work regardless of whether I have an account on the machine I'm trying
to connect to? Hear's what I'm trying to do. I'm basically trying to
configure samba, however I need to so that when I try to connect to a
windows computer or a linux computer running samba, it asks me for a
user account and password if needed, otherwise it connects without
error. Why is this proving so difficult? I'm really sorry if I sound
frustrated, it's not you guys at all. I've been banging my head against
the wall with this for about a week, trying to configure samba before
releasing the new stable image of sonar to the public. It also doesn't
help that most of my users are not at all understanding when something
they expect to work doesn't. Windows just works, why can't linux work
like windows, so on and so forth. That's what I have to look forward to
if I get this wrong.

Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by coffeeking
hi
Completely agree about windows. From what I'm hearing on this list
there's no "default" file that will do what I want? If I'm
understanding this right it's not how samba is configured so much as
it is what the gui tools will let me do? I use the mate desktop, with
the caja file manager and it's caja share extension. I've tried a few
things, connecting to smb:blackfang. This will think for a few seconds
and then return with "no such file or directory". I'm sorry to keep
going back to the same circles, I'm just trying to understand how
these things work. I'd like to come up with a smb.conf file which will
work for most users, since a lot of them connect to windows computers
or linux boxes running a samba server. Is this possible? dolphin isn't
an option for me because orca, the linux gtk screen reader, can't read
it. I do know that trying to connect to windows computers over the
network with nautilus or caja yields the "no such file or directory"
error or "connection timed out". I'm missing something, just not sure
what. If I'm being annoying, please don't hesitate to point me to
docs. It also sounds like results may vary based on what linux
distribution you use. Sonar is based on the manjaro linux distro which
is in turn based on arch, if that helps.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Windows is built to be generically compatible and configurable for
the common person. This does not make well for stability, function,
or security. Linux is built for everything but ease... To this end
there are gui apps that allow you to easily configure samba. Nothing
"just works" but when it does, it will never fail under most
circumstances. Windows it will work one day and not the next with
absolutely no reason... Now there were some changes to windows
security settings that make it less interoperable with samba (not
samba's fault) samba has also made security changes to make samba
more secure. One utility i have used for 10 years and has been
wonderful is "Webmin" its great for configuring most of the basic
linux systems and most all of the basic server software. I highly
recommend it..
So after setting a share checking passwords and rights i spent 20
hours trying to figure out why i couldnt access share and found on
centos(my distro) in addition to the samba share you also have to do
a "chcon -t samba_share_t /path" to turn on the samba security flag
or it wont allow samba to access the directory.. Now in my browser i
cannot see the samba system but i have no problem accessing it. This
may be a result of that IPC$ share that you sometimes get i think its
a pc share that windows does automatically that you may have to share
the "computer" in order for
It to be viewable like windows does. This is a function i want on
mine so maybe we can work on it together... Im out and about right
now but ill sent you a couple things to try when I get home.
Chad
Sent from my iPhone

Post by coffeeking
hi
Not just yet. I've set up a windows 10 instance on my desktop to
test with. It's not activated so I've got a month to test, will
probably only keep it around a couple of days. How is windows doing
this? When I go to connect to mellisa's computer which is running
windows 7, even with the workgroup name changed from the default
windows finds it and connects. I try the same on linux and I get
"cannot mount windows share. No such file or directory." It's
maddening. I'm not complaining, I'm just curious. Why is windows
able to autoconfigure itself, and samba isn't? Or is it, and I
haven't set the right options?
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Welcome kendell, i just signed up today my self... Have you gotten
your issue resolved? I see a lot of info but I cant tell who is
who, it doesn't say..
Chad

On Jul 16, 2016, at 7:44 PM, kendell clark
hi
Basically I'm trying to come up with a default config file that will
allow people to access their stuff that reside on windows computers,
macs or linux computers from across the network. I know windows uses the
"WORKGROUP" name by default unless you change it, but one thing I've
noticed is that samba can't simply query windows for the info it needs,
it has to be set explicitly. Windows is somehow able to figure this
stuff out. I'm going to guess that the way windows does this is some
patented ultra secret method that samba can't use or it would. I don't
know if it's possible to come up with a one size fits all config file,
but is it possible to come up with one that will work with most
"default" windows installations where the user hasn't changed the
settings from the way they're initially set? I'm new to all of this, so
if there's good docs on all of this, just point me to them and I'll get
out of your hair.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by Xen

Post by kendell clark
hi all
My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
linux, which you can learn more about at
http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
I've been struggling to come up with a default samba
configuration file
that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
all.

Basically you want a configuration for the local systems running your
distribution that will share stuff in a certain default way?
Or are you also concerned with importing stuff from the other computers?
Importing stuff might be an issue as it depends on the GUI of your
distribution? What I mean is that e.g. Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is rather
user friendly but I would not suggest it is ready for everything such
as mounting random shares from other servers? I haven't tried in full.
I do know Mint supports the USERSHARE thing and will allow people to
share their own folders from the GUI as long as you don't mess with it
behind the scenes (e.g. using a net command yourself) because it
doesn't sync that.
So I do not know how good the mounting experience is from Linux.
Personally I am trying to fix it as much as possible from my own
project in such a way that the names of the shares are almost
incapable of being changed (by a regular user).
A convient mount dialog, that also reinstates a mount on login, to my
knowledge and mind, doesn't really exist yet.
This is not Samba, this is mount.cifs, and the GUI configuration
whatever Distro or DE uses.

Post by kendell clark
My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
I don't use it myself I'm strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
for my fiance a lot, and I install it on my laptop periodically to test
samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
with no problems, prompting for a user name and password.

You mean for shares that were already configured previously and are
now slightly changed on the "server"?

Post by kendell clark
Samba doesn't.
It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them.

This is not really Samba, again, I am not meaning to be rude.
But Samba has very little to do with actually /accessing/ files (or
shares).
Most configuration is done by GUI environments that try to make some
of it work.
Now I realize the "client" side of things is also important. I am just
wishing to elude that the user side of this with regards to this, is
actually a componenent of your desktop environment (mate, as you call
it).

Post by kendell clark
My next
question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
connect with?

I personally consider the HomeGroup a very detrimental thing. They
have broken network-browsing, apparently, for regular fileshares and
won't even allow you to see the hosts on the network anymore, instead
opening webpages to configure routers and such, if these can be found.
If anything, I would want to change Windows computers such that
regular browsing works again; that will solve a lot of problems. Even
among Windows computers themselves, HomeGroup is terribly
annoying and
inconvenient.
It appears the only way from e.g. a Windows 10 computer to access any
shares on the network, is to use a direct access link like
\\server\share. That is the most inconvenient thing there has ever
been for a Windows user. I do not know how to turn HomeGroup (In
Windows 10) off myself, but I would really stay away from it if I were
you, rather than try to incorporate it in your system (although a best
of both worlds may be possible if you do want to support it).
"Support" is not the same as "Wanting to use it".
I don't get the Windows filesharing thing anymore. I must be getting
old (35 now ;-)).

Post by kendell clark
My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
looks like
$admin$
c$
f$
Users
The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply.

I take it your c$ and f$ are complete volume shares? I mean a complete
"partition" with a drive letter is getting shared?
I have no clue why that wouldn't mount, I have not tried it myself,
sorry. But in general it seems like the stuff you want to mount cannot
end with a $ sign?

Post by kendell clark
If
I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
that aren't supposed to be used.

Ah, yes.

Post by kendell clark
In order to access flash drives,
external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these?

Sure, why not. Do you mean shares from Windows computers, or shares
from your own systems?
You ask about Samba access, not samba sharing.
There is no inhibition in Samba (mount.cifs) to mount shared
directories from other hosts. The inhibition is in how convenient the
user interface of the local system is going to be in configuring all
of that (and not getting fixed with a solution that is
unchangable by
a regular user).
I am not knowledgeable enough yet about the GVFS system. I do know you
can sufficiently configure stuff for display in fstab: there are
options for choosing the name that something will have in your GUI, I
take it this is the same for Mate as it is for Cinnamon.
x-gvfs-show and x-gvfs-name come to mind. Look it up, it will help, I
guess.
But these are "root" access things that mess up fstab. I am sure it is
also possible to get stuff mounted in /media/user/, I just don't know
how good that will be.
You will need to find a way to either integrate the "Gnome
Automounter" (using /media/user) or by having a custom solution that
adds and changes things in fstab to be able to pass those "pretty"
parameters to Mate/Cinnamon.
However, I do not know if a solution exists that will be so convenient
that it asks your for a password when you log in.
That also doesn't exist for mounting crypt shares.
Not really. Not very well. If I put something in crypttab, SystemD
will bug me with its unlocking, even it is set to noauto and nofail.
SystemD is not a very good beast.
So I cannot put those shares (or cryptdevices) in fstab or crypttab
the way I want to.
And then the mounting feature from Cinnamon also won't work. Anyway.

Post by kendell clark
And if
so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
Thanks for any help

Like I said, I am a little angry with myself for not making it more
clear in a nice way, that most of the user interface stuff doesn't
really belong to Samba in that sense ;-).
Regards.
But you have my sympathy, I am trying to do much of the same thing
currently with Cinnamon, but just dealing with a system of fixed
mounts that I want to have the user to have no say about ;-).
Of course, having actual convenience would be much nicer.
Regards.

--
To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba

--
To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba

[kendell clark]

hi
Ok, this is odd. Samba now works. I went to smb://blackfang, samba
prompted me for my user name and password, and then connected. There was
an smbclient update, and that must've fixed it because before that it
wouldn't work. My final question is printer sharing. Is it simple to set
up printer sharing where a printer is installed on a windows machine and
shared across the network and if so, how to configure samba for this?
There's probably docs on this and if you like you can point me to them
and I'll read up on that.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by kendell clark
hi
Ok, I've now got more info. Doing smbclient -L blackfang returns the
following error. unknown name switch type dns. session setup failed.
NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE. This is frustrating. Isn't this supposed to
work regardless of whether I have an account on the machine I'm trying
to connect to? Hear's what I'm trying to do. I'm basically trying to
configure samba, however I need to so that when I try to connect to a
windows computer or a linux computer running samba, it asks me for a
user account and password if needed, otherwise it connects without
error. Why is this proving so difficult? I'm really sorry if I sound
frustrated, it's not you guys at all. I've been banging my head against
the wall with this for about a week, trying to configure samba before
releasing the new stable image of sonar to the public. It also doesn't
help that most of my users are not at all understanding when something
they expect to work doesn't. Windows just works, why can't linux work
like windows, so on and so forth. That's what I have to look forward to
if I get this wrong.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by coffeeking
hi
Completely agree about windows. From what I'm hearing on this list
there's no "default" file that will do what I want? If I'm
understanding this right it's not how samba is configured so much as
it is what the gui tools will let me do? I use the mate desktop, with
the caja file manager and it's caja share extension. I've tried a few
things, connecting to smb:blackfang. This will think for a few seconds
and then return with "no such file or directory". I'm sorry to keep
going back to the same circles, I'm just trying to understand how
these things work. I'd like to come up with a smb.conf file which will
work for most users, since a lot of them connect to windows computers
or linux boxes running a samba server. Is this possible? dolphin isn't
an option for me because orca, the linux gtk screen reader, can't read
it. I do know that trying to connect to windows computers over the
network with nautilus or caja yields the "no such file or directory"
error or "connection timed out". I'm missing something, just not sure
what. If I'm being annoying, please don't hesitate to point me to
docs. It also sounds like results may vary based on what linux
distribution you use. Sonar is based on the manjaro linux distro which
is in turn based on arch, if that helps.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Windows is built to be generically compatible and configurable for
the common person. This does not make well for stability, function,
or security. Linux is built for everything but ease... To this end
there are gui apps that allow you to easily configure samba. Nothing
"just works" but when it does, it will never fail under most
circumstances. Windows it will work one day and not the next with
absolutely no reason... Now there were some changes to windows
security settings that make it less interoperable with samba (not
samba's fault) samba has also made security changes to make samba
more secure. One utility i have used for 10 years and has been
wonderful is "Webmin" its great for configuring most of the basic
linux systems and most all of the basic server software. I highly
recommend it..
So after setting a share checking passwords and rights i spent 20
hours trying to figure out why i couldnt access share and found on
centos(my distro) in addition to the samba share you also have to do
a "chcon -t samba_share_t /path" to turn on the samba security flag
or it wont allow samba to access the directory.. Now in my browser i
cannot see the samba system but i have no problem accessing it. This
may be a result of that IPC$ share that you sometimes get i think its
a pc share that windows does automatically that you may have to share
the "computer" in order for
It to be viewable like windows does. This is a function i want on
mine so maybe we can work on it together... Im out and about right
now but ill sent you a couple things to try when I get home.
Chad
Sent from my iPhone

Post by coffeeking
hi
Not just yet. I've set up a windows 10 instance on my desktop to
test with. It's not activated so I've got a month to test, will
probably only keep it around a couple of days. How is windows doing
this? When I go to connect to mellisa's computer which is running
windows 7, even with the workgroup name changed from the default
windows finds it and connects. I try the same on linux and I get
"cannot mount windows share. No such file or directory." It's
maddening. I'm not complaining, I'm just curious. Why is windows
able to autoconfigure itself, and samba isn't? Or is it, and I
haven't set the right options?
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Welcome kendell, i just signed up today my self... Have you gotten
your issue resolved? I see a lot of info but I cant tell who is
who, it doesn't say..
Chad

On Jul 16, 2016, at 7:44 PM, kendell clark
hi
Basically I'm trying to come up with a default config file that will
allow people to access their stuff that reside on windows computers,
macs or linux computers from across the network. I know windows uses the
"WORKGROUP" name by default unless you change it, but one thing I've
noticed is that samba can't simply query windows for the info it needs,
it has to be set explicitly. Windows is somehow able to figure this
stuff out. I'm going to guess that the way windows does this is some
patented ultra secret method that samba can't use or it would. I don't
know if it's possible to come up with a one size fits all config file,
but is it possible to come up with one that will work with most
"default" windows installations where the user hasn't changed the
settings from the way they're initially set? I'm new to all of this, so
if there's good docs on all of this, just point me to them and I'll get
out of your hair.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by Xen

Post by kendell clark
hi all
My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
linux, which you can learn more about at
http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
I've been struggling to come up with a default samba
configuration file
that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
all.

Basically you want a configuration for the local systems running your
distribution that will share stuff in a certain default way?
Or are you also concerned with importing stuff from the other computers?
Importing stuff might be an issue as it depends on the GUI of your
distribution? What I mean is that e.g. Linux Mint (Cinnamon) is rather
user friendly but I would not suggest it is ready for everything such
as mounting random shares from other servers? I haven't tried in full.
I do know Mint supports the USERSHARE thing and will allow people to
share their own folders from the GUI as long as you don't mess with it
behind the scenes (e.g. using a net command yourself) because it
doesn't sync that.
So I do not know how good the mounting experience is from Linux.
Personally I am trying to fix it as much as possible from my own
project in such a way that the names of the shares are almost
incapable of being changed (by a regular user).
A convient mount dialog, that also reinstates a mount on login, to my
knowledge and mind, doesn't really exist yet.
This is not Samba, this is mount.cifs, and the GUI configuration
whatever Distro or DE uses.

Post by kendell clark
My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
I don't use it myself I'm strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
for my fiance a lot, and I install it on my laptop periodically to test
samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
with no problems, prompting for a user name and password.

You mean for shares that were already configured previously and are
now slightly changed on the "server"?

Post by kendell clark
Samba doesn't.
It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them.

This is not really Samba, again, I am not meaning to be rude.
But Samba has very little to do with actually /accessing/ files (or
shares).
Most configuration is done by GUI environments that try to make some
of it work.
Now I realize the "client" side of things is also important. I am just
wishing to elude that the user side of this with regards to this, is
actually a componenent of your desktop environment (mate, as you call
it).

Post by kendell clark
My next
question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
connect with?

I personally consider the HomeGroup a very detrimental thing. They
have broken network-browsing, apparently, for regular fileshares and
won't even allow you to see the hosts on the network anymore, instead
opening webpages to configure routers and such, if these can be found.
If anything, I would want to change Windows computers such that
regular browsing works again; that will solve a lot of problems. Even
among Windows computers themselves, HomeGroup is terribly annoying and
inconvenient.
It appears the only way from e.g. a Windows 10 computer to access any
shares on the network, is to use a direct access link like
\\server\share. That is the most inconvenient thing there has ever
been for a Windows user. I do not know how to turn HomeGroup (In
Windows 10) off myself, but I would really stay away from it if I were
you, rather than try to incorporate it in your system (although a best
of both worlds may be possible if you do want to support it).
"Support" is not the same as "Wanting to use it".
I don't get the Windows filesharing thing anymore. I must be getting
old (35 now ;-)).

Post by kendell clark
My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
looks like
$admin$
c$
f$
Users
The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply.

I take it your c$ and f$ are complete volume shares? I mean a complete
"partition" with a drive letter is getting shared?
I have no clue why that wouldn't mount, I have not tried it myself,
sorry. But in general it seems like the stuff you want to mount cannot
end with a $ sign?

Post by kendell clark
If
I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
that aren't supposed to be used.

Ah, yes.

Post by kendell clark
In order to access flash drives,
external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these?

Sure, why not. Do you mean shares from Windows computers, or shares
from your own systems?
You ask about Samba access, not samba sharing.
There is no inhibition in Samba (mount.cifs) to mount shared
directories from other hosts. The inhibition is in how convenient the
user interface of the local system is going to be in configuring all
of that (and not getting fixed with a solution that is
unchangable by
a regular user).
I am not knowledgeable enough yet about the GVFS system. I do know you
can sufficiently configure stuff for display in fstab: there are
options for choosing the name that something will have in your GUI, I
take it this is the same for Mate as it is for Cinnamon.
x-gvfs-show and x-gvfs-name come to mind. Look it up, it will help, I
guess.
But these are "root" access things that mess up fstab. I am sure it is
also possible to get stuff mounted in /media/user/, I just don't know
how good that will be.
You will need to find a way to either integrate the "Gnome
Automounter" (using /media/user) or by having a custom solution that
adds and changes things in fstab to be able to pass those "pretty"
parameters to Mate/Cinnamon.
However, I do not know if a solution exists that will be so convenient
that it asks your for a password when you log in.
That also doesn't exist for mounting crypt shares.
Not really. Not very well. If I put something in crypttab, SystemD
will bug me with its unlocking, even it is set to noauto and nofail.
SystemD is not a very good beast.
So I cannot put those shares (or cryptdevices) in fstab or crypttab
the way I want to.
And then the mounting feature from Cinnamon also won't work. Anyway.

Post by kendell clark
And if
so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
Thanks for any help

Like I said, I am a little angry with myself for not making it more
clear in a nice way, that most of the user interface stuff doesn't
really belong to Samba in that sense ;-).
Regards.
But you have my sympathy, I am trying to do much of the same thing
currently with Cinnamon, but just dealing with a system of fixed
mounts that I want to have the user to have no say about ;-).
Of course, having actual convenience would be much nicer.
Regards.

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[kendell clark]

hi
Lol, thanks for the docs. I'll read them. If possible I'd like to add
this into the default samba config file that's shipped with sonar. Is
this a good idea? I've gotten some responses that say it's not a good
idea to have a default samba config and then I've gotten some that say
it is. I'm not sure which way to go but I'd like to have one that will
work with most setups. I need to take a day off to cram on samba,
honestly. I think I'll do that tomorrow.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by kendell clark
hi
Ok, this is odd. Samba now works. I went to smb://blackfang, samba
prompted me for my user name and password, and then connected. There was
an smbclient update, and that must've fixed it because before that it
wouldn't work. My final question is printer sharing. Is it simple to set
up printer sharing where a printer is installed on a windows machine and
shared across the network and if so, how to configure samba for this?
There's probably docs on this and if you like you can point me to them
and I'll read up on that.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Your wish is my command :-)
See here: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Print_server_support
Rowland

[kendell clark]

hi
I've got another question, actually. I've copied my samba configuration
to my mac book pro, which runs the same linux distro, sonar 16.07.
However, when I try to connect to the same windows computer, samba
returns with a "connection refused" error. Is there some sort of
limitation in windows or am I just doing something wrong? I've made sure
to unmount the share when I'm done with it, but I can only connect to
blackfang, the windows computer from the desktop. Any other computer I
try errors out. I'm confused.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by kendell clark
hi
Lol, thanks for the docs. I'll read them. If possible I'd like to add
this into the default samba config file that's shipped with sonar. Is
this a good idea? I've gotten some responses that say it's not a good
idea to have a default samba config and then I've gotten some that say
it is. I'm not sure which way to go but I'd like to have one that will
work with most setups. I need to take a day off to cram on samba,
honestly. I think I'll do that tomorrow.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Post by kendell clark
hi
Ok, this is odd. Samba now works. I went to smb://blackfang, samba
prompted me for my user name and password, and then connected. There was
an smbclient update, and that must've fixed it because before that it
wouldn't work. My final question is printer sharing. Is it simple to set
up printer sharing where a printer is installed on a windows machine and
shared across the network and if so, how to configure samba for this?
There's probably docs on this and if you like you can point me to them
and I'll read up on that.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Your wish is my command :-)
See here: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Print_server_support
Rowland

[Xen]

Post by kendell clark
hi
Ok, I've now got more info. Doing smbclient -L blackfang returns the
following error. unknown name switch type dns. session setup failed.
NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE.

I don't know why it fails there or did fail there. But typically you can
use the -N option to specify the Guest account.

Your call must be:

smbclient -NL blackfang

(N becomes before the L here).

I understand your error and your frustration, it is not your fault.

When developers in general are content with a solution that works for
experts, that means that in general you need to become an expert before
you can use it. In general developers are experts and when experts are
their target audience....

Or you could also put it this way: if the target audience is an audience
that has already, in general, on average, spent at least 20.000 hours
learning Linux, then that shifts the idea of how user friendly your
solution should be.

Further many Linux people (not saying developers, but the people around
them as well) do not like to hear much that something doesn't work.

The attitudes on this list are much more user friendly than what you
will see around, from my perspective and opinion.

So there is nothing to blame but, well, culture.

In any case, I can try to help as much as I can, but I do not have a
solution myself, as this really requires GUI development, and the best I
can do myself is shell scripting, or at best hacking C source code to
make something work that currently doesn't. I find that "server" coding
is easier to get started with than "GUI coding".

Post by kendell clark
This is frustrating. Isn't this supposed to
work regardless of whether I have an account on the machine I'm trying
to connect to?

Guest user.

Post by kendell clark
Hear's what I'm trying to do. I'm basically trying to
configure samba, however I need to so that when I try to connect to a
windows computer or a linux computer running samba, it asks me for a
user account and password if needed, otherwise it connects without
error.

It is using guest user by default.

Post by kendell clark
Why is this proving so difficult? I'm really sorry if I sound
frustrated, it's not you guys at all.

I do not know if you are visually impaired yourself. I had a friend who
was a great programmer but his eyesight was so bad that his computer
operation was so severely limited that the simplest of things (for me)
were very hard for him because his reading speed was just way below
mine.

Not saying that to be negative. Just saying that I could understand if
using Linux would be harder for someone with bad eyesight. The amount of
reading you have to do sometimes to get the simplest things working is
abysmal.

This friend wanted to use some C library or C++ library on his Windows
computer and he did not understand how to use it. This boggled my mind a
bit because such things are generally rather easy. He didn't know how to
install it. It appears he had been programming for quite a number of
years. But he required on-screen magnification, a huge screen, and
mostly also, a huge keyboard ;-).

I understand running up against walls, I do so myself all the time.
Recently I ran up to the "autofs" wall being scarcely documented. The
developer promised he would add the missing bits to the documentation.
It is like the key to the secret of how it worked, was missing.

People who have learned these things in the past "the hard way" now
often forget how it was for them to learn it. Then, they consider such
knowledge "obvious" but it was never for them. When they learned it.

What they already know, they think a new person should easily be able to
learn, but they forget that they already know all the pathways. They do
not have to look for the pathways. And they don't realize this.

They don't comprehend a person that doesn't already know where to find
what they think that new person should be looking for. Ie. sure it is in
the manual, but you know where to find it, but the other person doesn't.

Everything becomes rather easy if you've already scaled the walls and
know all the crevices.

Finding your way blindly proves to be a little harder than what people
expect, no pun intended ;-).

Post by kendell clark
I've been banging my head against
the wall with this for about a week, trying to configure samba before
releasing the new stable image of sonar to the public. It also doesn't
help that most of my users are not at all understanding when something
they expect to work doesn't. Windows just works, why can't linux work
like windows, so on and so forth. That's what I have to look forward to
if I get this wrong.

Can't blame them. A small team of 5 people working at this for 3 months
would have the most perfect solution available for everyone (from a GUI
perspective). We also have small teams (so to speak) of 5 people working
at it for 3 months, but they perform so poorly on a whole that they
produce maybe 1% of the advances that the other team could achieve.

In Linux, I believe, without hoping to offend anyone here, and
particularly in the arena of graphical user interfaces where everyone
has a different idea of what needs to happen, cooperation between
developers and other creatives seems to be so difficult that progress is
kept back merely by way of disagreement.

Also a lot of people want (their) users to like something, instead of
making what people like. So first I make something and then I get you to
like it, instead of the other way around. User opinion is often
disregarded and frustrated.

Take KDE. You can choose from about 10 Window Switchers (Window List
switchers when you press alt-tab) but all of them are bad.

Cinnamon (Mint) has one that is almost perfect and convenient to use.
Why the difference?

Apparently the KDE people are not content with using the obvious. So
either the thumbnails are too big, or they are too small. But the middle
ground is not ventured.

You can't actually have normal-sized icons. You can only have those that
are too small, or too big.

So you have 10 alternative ways of doing things, and none of them are
right. And then someone else makes only a single alternative, and it is
perfect.

:-/.

Meaning. You can have a million developers doing the bad thing, and
after you set those million developers to work for a million hours each,
you will still not have anything worth of mention.

But if you merely take one person doing the right thing, within 5000
hours you will have something outstanding.


...on the Kate/Kwrite developer list there is now mention of a bug that
was fixed before. But after a revamp the code was thrown out, and the
bug returned. Now the developer that fixed the bug is asking for
volunteers to tackle the issue because apparently he doesn't know how to
do it anymore?

It's a very simple problem. And see how they go about it. See how it is
getting tackled.

It is frustratingly inefficient this way of working, without hoping to
put anyone in a bad light personally here.

So my general appraisal of the Linux situation in terms of user
interfaces is that people get mired in work that does't get them
anywhere, and inefficiently get stuck while not advancing, while someone
else using a different way of working, or a different way of
cooperating, would have been miles ahead by now.

Everyone seems to be stuck in the mud. Well, anyway. The Cinnamon and
Mint people (Mate also) seem to be doing much better and appear to be
advancing much faster.

So I think some of them are not unkind to hearing actual use cases that
you might have and what you run into. I am not familiar with their
developer channels just yet.

My apologies if this is too much text.

The I Ching mentions:

"No game in the field". It is not enough to be persistent in searching.
You also have to look in the right place.

Well, whatever ;-). Regards.

[Reindl Harald]

Post by Xen
I do not know if you are visually impaired yourself. I had a friend who
was a great programmer but his eyesight was so bad that his computer
operation was so severely limited that the simplest of things (for me)
were very hard for him because his reading speed was just way below mine.
Not saying that to be negative. Just saying that I could understand if
using Linux would be harder for someone with bad eyesight. The amount of
reading you have to do sometimes to get the simplest things working is
abysmal

seriously?

i started to migrate anything to Linux in 2006 after my corneal
transplantation on the first eye which means you can't read anything
with that for at least one year at a time where the other eye worked 50%
at best

you rargumentation is really adventurous

the opposite maybe is true - i learned to read completly different than
normal people and focus the important parts which makes me read and
understand technical documentations or configurations 2-3 times faster
the average people since i need only to read a small amount uf text

at least that is what i notice for a decade and let me despair from time
to time

[Xen]

Post by Reindl Harald
seriously?
i started to migrate anything to Linux in 2006 after my corneal
transplantation on the first eye which means you can't read anything
with that for at least one year at a time where the other eye worked
50% at best
you rargumentation is really adventurous
the opposite maybe is true - i learned to read completly different
than normal people and focus the important parts which makes me read
and understand technical documentations or configurations 2-3 times
faster the average people since i need only to read a small amount uf
text
at least that is what i notice for a decade and let me despair from
time to time

I only know this guy had to expend much more effort finding the same
information I did; or at least that is what it seemed like.

But you're right that distraction is probably the biggest cause of
wasted time.

[Xen]

Post by kendell clark
hi
Basically I'm trying to come up with a default config file that will
allow people to access their stuff that reside on windows computers,
macs or linux computers from across the network. I know windows uses the
"WORKGROUP" name by default unless you change it, but one thing I've
noticed is that samba can't simply query windows for the info it needs,
it has to be set explicitly. Windows is somehow able to figure this
stuff out. I'm going to guess that the way windows does this is some
patented ultra secret method that samba can't use or it would. I don't
know if it's possible to come up with a one size fits all config file,
but is it possible to come up with one that will work with most
"default" windows installations where the user hasn't changed the
settings from the way they're initially set? I'm new to all of this, so
if there's good docs on all of this, just point me to them and I'll get
out of your hair.

Again, it has nothing to do with Samba.

If you install the smbclient package, you can do:

smbclient -NL <hostname>

And you will see all the shares.

I am pretty sure it works across Workgroup names, because the -L option
(list) is oblivious to the -W option (workgroup).

If you are quering the local browse master, you will also see all of the
other hosts in the network. I don't know how to find this
programmatically.

The -B option doesn't work for me. When I say "nothing to do with Samba"
I mean that is not a server configuration thing, this.

Therefore, there is no "one config file" to want here. smb.conf does not
govern how you browse or access other shares.

If there is a samba tool to discover all of the hosts on a network, and
I am sure there is, then your GUI can use that to discover everything
and allow a browse interface.

Dolphin can already do that quite successfully I might add.

It just won't allow you to map anything to a fixed drive like you can so
easily do on Windows.

Mounting stuff seems to be rather annoying. I don't know how Cinnamon
does this, for example, with the gnome vfs system.