SAMBA is driving me insane

schmidtbag · 2011-02-20 00:13:18

When it works, Samba is great, but it has got to be the most frustrating multi platform service I have ever dealt with. I find it easy to configure but it just doesn't work. All I want to do is share ONE folder between all computers in my network with no authentication. Heres my /etc/samba/smb.conf

[global]
workgroup = SCHMIDT
server string = Peter's Linux Computer
security = share
guest account = nobody

[Peter's Shared Folder]
writable = yes
path = /home/zorro/Share
public = yes
guest ok = yes
guest only = yes
guest account = nobody
browsable = yes

Yes, its that simple, and it still doesn't do anything. Samba is active, I have also ran:
sudo smbpasswd -a zorro
nmbd restart
smbd restart
/etc/init.d/smb restart
/etc/init.d/samba restart

with no errors. I use KDE 4, and when I open up samba shared in dolphin, everything on the network shows up, including my computer, but whenever I try to access my computer, it keeps asking for authentication. No matter what I enter, it will not log me in. Theres a Windows computer on my network that I can access just fine.

graysky · 2011-02-20 00:30:13

schmidtbag wrote:

sudo smbpasswd -a zorro
nmbd restart
smbd restart
/etc/init.d/smb restart
/etc/init.d/samba restart

You running Arch or Ubuntu/Debian?

schmidtbag · 2011-02-20 03:20:13

graysky wrote:

schmidtbag wrote:
sudo smbpasswd -a zorro
nmbd restart
smbd restart
/etc/init.d/smb restart
/etc/init.d/samba restart
You running Arch or Ubuntu/Debian?

haha arch, why else would i post on these forums? do ubuntu and debian users really ask questions here?

Wittfella · 2011-02-20 03:38:56

I think he was referring to the /etc/init.d/* lines in your file, is that just a typo? Should be /etc/rc.d/* no?

schmidtbag · 2011-02-20 04:16:10

Wittfella wrote:

I think he was referring to the /etc/init.d/* lines in your file, is that just a typo? Should be /etc/rc.d/* no?

hmm i'm not sure, but wouldn't that mean i'd get errors? also i believe the arch wiki says to use init.d. i'm a pretty new arch user - before this i was using debian and i didn't have to deal with this.

stryder · 2011-02-20 07:09:29

There's no /etc/init.d/ in arch. So if you didn't get any errors you were probably not in arch and likely debian/ubuntu.

madeye · 2011-02-20 07:31:25

@schmidtbag,

Have you tried adding

map to guest = bad user

to you smb.conf?
That is sometimes necessary to make samba use the guest user account.

And of course you need linux access rights to the folder for you guest account.

toad · 2011-02-20 09:41:31

If you did /etc/init.d/samba restart and it worked you are not running Arch. If you are running Arch then you couldn't have done it.

Mind boggles.

Anyway, regardless of your distro you can open a root systemsettings session under kde4 (kdesu systemsettings), go into network and configure your samba there if all else fails.

schmidtbag · 2011-02-20 15:53:05

@madeye
Yes, I've also done just about everything I can to make the samba config file to work. I've even copied known working files and tweaked them to fit my folder and network and it still asks me for a password.

@stryder
i'm more than 100% sure i'm running arch. i have the folder /etc/init.d/ but it only has 2 files in it. however, /etc/rc.d/ has a lot of stuff in it, including samba

$ uname -a
Linux tornado 2.6.37-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Feb 11 09:29:49 CET 2011 x86_64 Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 180 AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

@toad
running "/etc/init.d samba restart" works but so does running it with /etc/rc.d. it wouldn't surprise me if arch links init.d to rc.d, because like i mentioned earlier, init.d has almost no files in it (not even samba) but rc.d has quite a few. i've been using systemsettings most of the time and its got me absolutely nowhere. i think that tool is nice but what i hate about is it doesn't tell you what things are and why they're checked on or off.

Even if I restart the computer, it doesn't change anything. Samba does run when I restart because I see it tell me that it has successfully started.

Last edited by schmidtbag (2011-02-20 16:12:13)

skunktrader · 2011-02-20 16:38:43

There is no /etc/init.d directory on any of my 5 arch machines

schmidtbag · 2011-02-20 17:00:16

something else i installed must have created it then. the point is, mine does exist, theres only 2 files in it, and it does restart samba even though samba is not in that folder.

since we know samba does start and restart whether i use init.d or rc.d, can we please focus on how to solve my problem instead of focusing on these files? unless these files have a direct influence to samba not asking for authentication, they do not seem to be causing the problem.

graysky · 2011-02-20 17:22:56

Post the output of cat /etc/hosts.allow

EDIT: disregard, only relevant for sshd, cupsd, etc. Samba doesn't need one.

1) Do you have a path /home/zorro/Share on your file system note your capital "S" as you defined it.
2) What are the file permissions on your share?

Perhaps that is your problem/I have no experience using share based security, only user based.

Here is my functional /etc/samba/smb.conf for your reference:

[global]
   workgroup = share
   server string = arch server
   security = user
   hosts allow = 192.168.1. 127.
   log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
   max log size = 50
   socket options = TCP_NODELAY
   server string = running_with_scissors
   work group = cow

[music]
        comment = music
        writeable = yes
        valid users = facade,pretend
        path = /media/data/music

[facade's Home]
        comment = Facade's Home Directory
        writeable = yes
        valid users = facade
        path = /home/facade

Last edited by graysky (2011-02-20 17:28:46)

schmidtbag · 2011-02-20 17:59:29

graysky wrote:

Post the output of cat /etc/hosts.allow
EDIT: disregard, only relevant for sshd, cupsd, etc. Samba doesn't need one.
1) Do you have a path /home/zorro/Share on your file system note your capital "S" as you defined it.
2) What are the file permissions on your share?
Perhaps that is your problem/I have no experience using share based security, only user based.
Here is my functional /etc/samba/smb.conf for your reference:
[global]
   workgroup = share
   server string = arch server
   security = user
   hosts allow = 192.168.1. 127.
   log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
   max log size = 50
   socket options = TCP_NODELAY
   server string = running_with_scissors
   work group = cow

[music]
        comment = music
        writeable = yes
        valid users = facade,pretend
        path = /media/data/music

[facade's Home]
        comment = Facade's Home Directory
        writeable = yes
        valid users = facade
        path = /home/facade

Yes, it is with a capital S. The problem is it asks for authentication before I can even see the folder. If I select my computer on the network, it asks me to authenticate before I can even browse which folders are shared in it. Like I said before, I can enter other people's computers and their folders, but I can't enter my computer at all.

stryder · 2011-02-21 00:51:55

If you have /etc/init.d/ and the files there are samba related then it is relevant, as in that samba might have been installed from some other source at some point. I would uninstall samba and remove everything related and install again. I also remember that samba's backend for passwords had changed some time ago. And I would use the default smb.conf.default to test my shares first. Comments there are very detailed.

schmidtbag · 2011-02-21 15:55:36

stryder wrote:

If you have /etc/init.d/ and the files there are samba related then it is relevant, as in that samba might have been installed from some other source at some point. I would uninstall samba and remove everything related and install again. I also remember that samba's backend for passwords had changed some time ago. And I would use the default smb.conf.default to test my shares first. Comments there are very detailed.

what i'm saying is none of the files in init.d are samba related. the only files in that folder are "readme", "rc", and "rcS". I installed samba through pacman, and I used the smb.conf.default and that also didn't help.

stryder · 2011-02-22 02:13:08

If there are no files in /etc/init.d/ , then
/etc/init.d/smb restart
/etc/init.d/samba restart

should have thrown up errors, right? Anyway that is a mystery for you to solve.

I have an arch virtual machine on my mac and what I did was to copy your smb.conf, (changed paths accordingly) over there, created the folder Share, and started samba.

I could enter the share from my mac without any authentication (it reports logged in as guest). Couldn't write to the share so I changed permissions in the Share folder to 777, restarted samba, re-accessed the share folder from my mac (again no authentication) and I have read/write access.

There is nothing wrong with your smb.conf. Hopefully that will help you troubleshoot. As I said, I would uninstall samba and remove everything related (delete /etc/samba and /etc/rc.d/samba at least) and install again. Arch doesn't have /etc/init.d so I would remove it (although you should figure out how it got there).

Last edited by stryder (2011-02-22 02:16:17)

Maki · 2011-02-22 03:16:18

do pacman -Qo /etc/init.d/samba

schmidtbag · 2011-02-22 17:54:50

Maki wrote:

do pacman -Qo /etc/init.d/samba

sudo pacman -Qo /etc/init.d/samba
Password:
error: failed to read file '/etc/init.d/samba': No such file or directory

sudo pacman -Qo /etc/rc.d/samba
/etc/rc.d/samba is owned by samba 3.5.6-1

Carlwill · 2011-02-23 13:36:32

Change the file permission on the folder you're trying to share with 'chmod 777 /shared/folder'.

schmidtbag · 2011-02-23 17:28:05

Carlwill wrote:

Change the file permission on the folder you're trying to share with 'chmod 777 /shared/folder'.

That isn't the problem, I'm restricted to see ANYTHING shared in my computer. The second I double click on my computer in a file browser, it asks for permissions. Even if my shared folder did have permission issues, it should still be visible.

Carlwill · 2011-02-23 17:46:09

What are the permissions to the folder you're sharing. Just curious. Can you post ls -l on that directory?

schmidtbag · 2011-02-23 17:49:24

Carlwill wrote:

What are the permissions to the folder you're sharing. Just curious. Can you post ls -l on that directory?

Again, my issue is occurring BEFORE I can even see any shared folders at all, but here it is anyway:

drwxr-xr-x 2 zorro users 4096 Feb 23 00:46 Share

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-20 00:13:18

SAMBA is driving me insane

#2 2011-02-20 00:30:13

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#3 2011-02-20 03:20:13

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#4 2011-02-20 03:38:56

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#5 2011-02-20 04:16:10

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#6 2011-02-20 07:09:29

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#7 2011-02-20 07:31:25

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#8 2011-02-20 09:41:31

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#9 2011-02-20 15:53:05

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#10 2011-02-20 16:38:43

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#11 2011-02-20 17:00:16

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#12 2011-02-20 17:22:56

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#13 2011-02-20 17:59:29

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#14 2011-02-21 00:51:55

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#15 2011-02-21 15:55:36

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#16 2011-02-22 02:13:08

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#17 2011-02-22 03:16:18

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#18 2011-02-22 17:54:50

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#19 2011-02-23 13:36:32

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#20 2011-02-23 17:28:05

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#21 2011-02-23 17:46:09

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

#22 2011-02-23 17:49:24

Re: SAMBA is driving me insane

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