Arch Linux

proinit100

Member

Registered: 2023-10-27

Posts: 3

Samba client stopped connecting to Windows Server

Good day,

Foreword:
At work recently moved my workstation from Windows 10 to Arch. This is the only Linux device on the LAN. It's basically a windows network with a Windows Server. The Windows server is out of my control, though I know the ones who manage the server.

System:
Clean Arch linux, only using 'core' and 'extra', no other repositories.
Linux servername 6.1.60-1-lts #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed, 25 Oct 2023 11:10:15 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
KDE Plasma 5.27.9 on X11
Hardware is an AMD A8-5600K APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics, and an NVidia GeForce 210.

Installed packages as detailed in the Archwiki Samba page for Client config and KDE Dolphin file manager

This PC only uses samba as client, to connect to the Windows Server shared folder.

The file /etc/samba/smb.conf has been always empty. Never touched any smb.conf file nor fstab. fstab is today as it was yesterday.

Issue:
Since I performed the Arch clean install, I've been connecting to the Windows Shared folder I have access to without any issues whatsoever until today (2023.10.27). Yesterday (2023.10.26) I could connect without any issues. Today, no way to gain access to the shared folder.

Before:
I used Dolphin to connect to the Windows server by adding smb://192.168.0.1/PATHTO/SHAREDFOLDER, then wrote username and password in the Dolphin's popup. No problem to gain RW access to that path. SHAREDFOLDER is the only folder on that server that I have RW access to.
Also did connect manually to verify cli connection:

mount -t cifs //192.168.0.1/PATHTO/SHAREDFOLDER ~/Pathto/Sharedfolder -o username=name,password=pw,uid=1000,gid=1000

with this, I could also mount the server's share on the local user's folder. I use uid=1000 and gid=1000 because smb user is different from Arch user, as comes set by the Windows Server.

Today:
Nothing changed from yesterday, that I know of. I didn't perform any updates or added software of any kind. After trying the following steps (1 to 4), updated the system (pacman -Syyu) which resulted in the KDE name changing thing, update went fine, everything seemed fine. Followed the steps (1 to 4) again yielded the same results.
1- On turning on the PC, Dolphin complains that can't open the Network share, asking for username and password. Dolphin does not acknowledge username/password pair whatsoever thus shared folder is not mounted.

2- Tried on cli again today and got the following error:

mount error(13): Permission denied
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs) and kernel log messages (dmesg)

dmesg spits out this:

[ 6234.618296] CIFS: Attempting to mount \\192.168.0.1\PATHTO
[ 6234.747209] CIFS: VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -13

3- Then I tried to get info from the server with this:

smbclient -L //192.168.0.1 -U name

with this, writing the password for user "name" I can see the shared folders available in the server in a list (Sharename/Type/Comment). List ends with:
SMB1 disabled -- no workgroup available

4- Tried to connect through smbclient:

smbclient //192.168.0.1/PATHTO/SHAREDFOLDER -U name

with result:

tree connect failed: NT_STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_NAME

smbclient //192.168.0.1/PATHTO -D SHAREDFOLDER -U name

with result:

cd \SHAREDFOLDER\: NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED

smbclient //192.168.0.1/PATHTO -U name

with result that I can get the smb prompt but cant do anything, not even 'ls', nor 'cd' as I get the NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED response from the terminal.

Therefore I'm a bit puzzled. I even tried some esoteric things I found searching online, as adding user=whatever/password=soever in KDE System Settings>Network>Settings>Windows Shares. But did not work.

I would sincerely appreciate any hints on how to solve this issue. Monday will need to check with the Windows Server admin if anything has changed on the server side too, though I'm the only one having issues connecting to the server.

Thanks in advance,
Proinit

Last edited by proinit100 (2023-10-27 16:30:26)

proinit100

Member

Registered: 2023-10-27

Posts: 3

Re: Samba client stopped connecting to Windows Server

Good day,

After talking to server's administrator, verified server's config and that nothing has changed on the server side, I'm even more puzzled. Today can't still connect to the samba share.

Thanks in advance,
Proinit

proinit100

Member

Registered: 2023-10-27

Posts: 3

Re: Samba client stopped connecting to Windows Server

Good day again,

Apologies. After talking with the server administrator again, and verifying logs and configs. it turned out that somehow all my permissions had been deleted on the server side, without anyone but me noticing. Bringing the permissions back up again fixed the issue.

Again, apologies for wasting your time.
Proinit

Issue solved

Last edited by proinit100 (2023-10-31 11:16:33)