Configuring aptosid to use SAMBA (Windows) Shares from Remote Machines

Do all commands as root (in a Terminal or Konsole) Put the URL in Konqueror (run Konqueror as normal user).

server = servername or IP of the Windows Machine
share = name of the share

In KDE - Konqueror put in the URL smb://server or the complete URL smb://server/share

In a konsole you can see the shares located on a server by:

smbclient -L server

To mount a share in a directory -(with full access for ALL Users) remember this: Mountpoint must exist. If it does not, you must first create directory like this (Name is arbitrary):

mkdir -p /mnt/server_share

Then mount the share - remote filesystem VFAT:

mount -t cifs -o username=Administrator,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 //server/share /mnt/server_share

or remote filesystem NTFS:

mount -t cifs -o username=Administrator,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777,lfs //server/share /mnt/server_share

To terminate the connection, use:

umount /mnt/server_share

If you want to put an entry in /etc/fstab to make the mount easier then insert the following line in that file:

//server/share  /mnt/server_share       cifs  defaults,username=your_username,password=**********,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777   0   0

How to set up aptosid as Samba-Server

As samba is not pre-installed you will need to do the following to have samba access:

su
apt-get update
apt-get install samba samba-tools smbclient cifs-utils samba-common-bin

HD installations:

Example 1:

On a HD-Install it is neccessary to adjust the Samba Configuration. Here is a simple example. If you want to know more about the usage of Samba and the setup of a Linux Samba Server advisable to read the Samba Documentation..

To adjust the samba-configuration you do as follows:

Open the file /etc/samba/smb.conf in an editor (e.g. kedit or kwrite) and enter this:

# Global Changes - Proposal everything simple as
#possible - no passwords, perform like Windows 9x

[global]
security = share
workgroup = WORKGROUP

# Share without write-permission -important if NTFS Filesystems are to be shared!

[WINDOWS]
comment = Windows Partition
browseable = yes
writable = no
path = /media/sda1 # <-- adjust to your partition
public = yes

# Sharing a partition with permission to write- the partition has to be mounted
# writable - makes sense with e.g. FAT32.

[DATA]
comment = Data Partition (first extended Partition)
browseable = yes
writable = yes
path = /media/sda5
public = yes

Restart the samba server

service samba restart

Example 2:

groupadd smbuser
useradd -g smbuser <the-user-you-want>
smbpasswd -a <the-user-you-want>
smbpasswd -e <the-user-you-want>

Next edit /etc/samba/smb.conf to give it share permissions, (be careful with what folders you enable), for example:

[homes]
   comment = Home Directories
   browseable = yes.
   writeable = yes

[media, be careful!]
    path = /media
    browseable = yes
    read only = no
    #read only = yes
    guest ok = no
    writeable = yes

[video]
    path = /var/lib/video
    browseable = yes
    #read only = no
    read only = yes
    guest ok = no

#any other folder you want to share with windows/linux/mac
    #path = path = /media/xxxx/xxxx
    #browseable = yes
    #read only = no
    #read only = yes
    #guest ok = no

Restart the samba server

service samba restart

Checking the shares in samba

To set the shares without regard to security in samba do the folowing commands (i.e. for a LAN setup):

Set folder and its content at least -rwxr-xr-x:

ls -la pathTo/dirShareName/*

If not, do:

chmod -R 755 pathTo/dirShareName

If you want it to be writable:

chmod -R 777 dirShareName

A way to make sure your share is working: ( do not forget to start the server):

smbclient -L localhost

You should see something like:

 smbclient -L localhost
Password:
Domain=[HOME] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.26a]

        Sharename       Type      Comment
        ---------       ----      -------
        IPC$            IPC       IPC Service (3.0.26a)
        MaShare         Disk      comment
        print$          Disk      Printer Drivers
Domain=[MSHOME] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.26a]

If you did not set a password, just press ENTER

Do not forget to save. You can now start/stop samba with:

service samba start

and:

service samba stop

You can also start/stop samba automaticaly at boot-time. Issue this call:

update-rc.d samba defaults

Now samba starts when you boot and stops when you shutdown.

More samba information here.