Using Samba to Share Your Linux Folders with Another PC or Virtual Machine

[PAGETITLE=Introduction, Configuring Samba & Creating Shares][Top Ad] One of the most popular questions long-time Linux users have been asked is, "How do I create a network share that Windows can see?", and it's for good reason. Creating a network share in Linux is a simple enough affair, but your knowledge of pulling off the same trick in Redmond's famed OS might not help too much. The best solution for sharing Linux folders across a network is a piece of software that's about as old as Linux itself: Samba. Despite the fact that the tool is designed to cater to Windows' SMB protocol, it became a Linux stature long ago. Its tagline is "Opening Windows to a Wider World", and it couldn't be more apt for what it accomplishes. Guides for installing and using Samba are a Dogecoin a dozen, so what I'm hoping to accomplish with this one is to make it simple. I'd also like to provide some unusual examples of what can be done with it, including what can be done from within a Windows virtual machine. Linux shares mapped as network drives in Windows Samba is a popular Linux tool, and chances are you already have it installed. To see if that's the case, open up a terminal and test to see if its configuration folder exists: ls -l /etc/samba You can also travel to that folder from within a file manager, as it doesn't require root or sudo to do so. If a list of files gets printed back, you're good to roll. Otherwise, you'll have to install the tool. Installing Samba will be a simple affair, but because the best method of doing so will differ from distro to distro, I highly encourage you to go to your distro's website and search for a Samba guide. Personalized guides are the best guides; looking at the wrong one might cause you to skip a step that would have otherwise made the experience a lot better. In rarer cases, installing Samba might not be enough. A required counterpart is the CIFS (Common Internet File System) kernel module, which in turn requires FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) support. Chances are good that both of these will be taken care of when following a distro-specific Samba guide. If not, I'd recommend going to a search engine and querying "CIFS (Your Distro)" for more information. Configuring Samba. After Samba is installed, a default configuration file called smb.conf.default can be found in /etc/samba. This file needs to be copied to the same folder with the name of smb.conf, but before doing this, it'd be worth running the same ls -l /etc/samba command as above to see if your distro has that file there already. If it doesn't exist, it's as simple as entering sudo (or sudo -s to retain escalated privileges for the time-being, or su for systems without sudo) and making use of the default file: cp /etc/samba/smb.conf.default /etc/samba/smb.conf Here's a real-world example: Samba's user configuration is driven from this smb.conf file, so it needs to be edited to create shares. There are a number of graphical tools for accomplishing this, but I recommend editing the file inside of the terminal, using 'nano' or 'vim'. Normally, I try to avoid recommending the terminal to those who prefer GUI, but there's nothing to be afraid of here - this is all plain text, and straight-forward. Using nano: The Samba configuration file can be edited (as sudo, sudo -s, or su) with the command nano -w /etc/samba/smb.conf. nano works as a normal text editor, so delete and add away. Once done, hit Ctrl + X; when the save prompt comes up, push Y and then Enter. In some cases, a share might be able to be created from within a file manager. In KDE, you can right-click a folder, go to its properties, and then its sharing tab: Configuring a Samba share in KDE If a file manager sharing option isn't available, and you'd still rather a GUI solution: Go to your OS' control center, and look for sharing or networking options. Go to a search engine and type in, "(Your Distro) Samba GUI". Open the smb.conf with a text editor as root (or sudo). Launch the app through the terminal. The most complicated part about configuring Samba isn't editing the smb.conf file, it's understanding all of the options that are provided. Fortunately, the default configuration file includes a ton of examples, so I'd highly recommend perusing through those to get a grasp on things. I'd also recommend editing the workgroup = VALUE option near the top of the file (I use WORKGROUP). After fiddling with the general configuration options up top, you can scroll to the bottom of the file and lay the groundwork for a new share: [Share Name] path = /home/username/Share option = value The [Share Name] is the name of the folder that will be viewable after entering the network hostname (eg: \\LINUXPC\Share Name). The path will be the Linux folder that will be accessible after entering this share. As for the options, there are many. As I mentioned above, the smb.conf file itself contains a number of examples; for all others, there's a huge page over at the official website to take care of the rest. Let's cover a couple of the more common ones, though. guest ok = yes --- Guest accounts are OK to use the share; aka: no passwords. guest only = yes --- Only guests may use the share. writable = yes --- The share will allow files to be written to it. read only = yes --- Files cannot be written to the share, just read. force user = username --- Act as this user when accessing the share, even if a different user/pass is provided. force group = groupname --- Act as this usergroup when accessing the share. username = username, username2, @groupname --- If the password matches one of these users, the share can be accessed. valid users = username, username2, @groupname --- Like above, but requires users to enter their username. Here are a couple of example shares I use: The "force user" and "force group" options are not go-to options, so I'd recommend trying to create a share without them first. In some cases, permission issues will prevent you from writing to certain folders, a situation I found myself in where my NAS mounts and desktop folder were concerned. If worse comes to worse, simply add these force options and retest. Each time the smb.conf file is edited, Samba should be restarted to reflect the changes. On most distros, running this command as sudo (or su) should take care of it: /etc/init.d/samba restart For Ubuntu-based distros, the service command might need to be used. As sudo: service smbd restart If neither of these commands work, refer to your distro's documentation. With Samba all configured, let's connect to our shares! [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Taking Advantage of Our Samba Shares][Top Ad] Once a Samba share is created, it can be accessed through applications that support the SMB protocol, as one would expect. While Samba's big focus is Windows, it's not the only piece of software that can take advantage of it. Many file managers for mobile platforms are designed to support the protocol, and other Linux PCs can mount them as well. On this page, we'll take a look at a couple of different solutions for accessing our Samba shares. First things first: The Microsoft side. In Windows, browsing to "Network" should reveal your Linux PC's hostname; in my particular case, it's TGGENTOO. After double-clicking on it, the entire list of shares will be revealed. Network shares are all fine and good, but it's a hassle that to get to one, it requires a bunch of clicking and waiting. Depending on Windows' mood, the Linux hostname might not even appear on the network. To ease the pain of having to go through all that again, mounting a share from within Windows is a great option. For simple needs, a desktop shortcut might provide quick enough access, but shortcuts by design are quite limited. When mounting a network share as a Windows network drive, however, it acts just as a normal hard drive does. Mounting a Samba share as a network drive is simple: net use X: \\HOSTNAME\Sharenet use X: "\\HOSTNAME\Share Name" Quotation marks surrounding the entire share is required if there's a space in its name. A real-world example: See? It couldn't be more simple. Using a Samba Share in a Virtual Machine. In the title of this article, I reference virtual machines; but why? Guest OSes should be no different when it comes to mounting a network share, right? What's the big deal? For me, it's a very big deal, given I use a PC that dual-boots Linux and Windows. It might be best to just provide a screenshot, then explain it: That's a screenshot of Windows 7 that I run inside of a virtual machine when I'm in Linux. Because I've mapped my Samba shares to the same drive letters as in native Windows, this virtualized OS reads files from many of the same locations. Steam, for example, reads my games from the F:\ drive in both native and VM Windows, which means I could easily play simpler Windows games while in Linux all while using the exact same library. Another example is with uTorrent. In this virtualized Windows, I have the locations of the torrents stored on the same drive letters, and likewise, I am running the exact same uTorrent install between OSes. What that means is, I could delete or add a torrent inside this VM, and the change would be reflected when I return to native Windows. Using a Samba Share on a Mobile Device. It might be hard for some to appreciate the above, so let's get back onto less complicated things. Here's me browsing all of my Samba shares through ES File Explorer on Android: Some file managers on mobile are not that feature-rich, so complications might arise if accessing a share that has differing user / password requirements for different shares. If everything is wide-open, as it is with my setup, you should have a trouble-free experience. Using a Samba Share on Linux. In some cases, Linux file managers might show Samba shares right alongside regular folders in its left pane; at that point, it'd just be a matter of clicking on one to access it. If not, or fine-tuned mountpoints...

Using Samba to Share Your Linux Folders with Another PC or Virtual Machine

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Rob Williams