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Sharing your data

If you are in a Windows network and you want to share your home to the windows machines on your LAN with no security or authentication you can do the following steps.

  • Have samba client and samba server installed
  • Configure the Samba server
  • Add your resource to broadcast

Using the command line and knowing your way around will make the configuration mostly agnostic from the distro you are using. However we include also a web alternative to avoid dealing with the command line, and the KDE and GNOME ways FYI.

Using the CLI

Most of the configuration takes place and most of the files are located at /etc/samba/smb.conf

First we will edit the file smb.conf, make sure you are root. 

 $ su
 password: ****
 $ vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

The file is full of comments we will be focusing on the parametersWorkgroup and netbios name' and put the name you want on your machine. 

 # 1. Server Naming Options:
 # workgroup = NT-Domain-Name or Workgroup-Name
 workgroup = <name_your_workgroup>

and 

 # netbios name is the name you will see in "Network Neighbourhood",
 # but defaults to your hostname
 netbios name = <name_of_your_pc>

and 

 # server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field
 server string = <any_comment>

Now we need to define the security level and assign the resources we want to share. 

 # Security mode. Most people will want user level security. See
 # security_level.txt for details.
 security = share

Then we will go to share our resources scroll down to where it says public where you will be able to set up the coments, path (insert /home/user/), public = yes, writable (up to you). 

 # A publicly accessible directory, but read only
 # the "staff" group
 [public]
  comment = <any_comment>
  path = /home/<your_user>/
  public = yes
  writable = no (or yes)

The next step is to save and restart the smb service you can do this typing: 

 $ service smb restart

or if you are using ubuntu or other distribution you can do this using. 

 $ rc /etc/init.d/smb restart

Using KDE

KDE has samba support on their control center called kcontrol.

Go to Run command and type kcontrol. You will get the KDE control center go to Network > Samba.

Click on Administrator Mode and type your root password.

Fill your WORKGROUP, NetBIOS and Server String

Then select the Security level to Share which if you read on you will see an explanation saying:

Use the shared security level if you have a home network or a small office network. It allows everyone to read all share names before a login is required.'

We will then switch to shares and clic on Add New Share..

Select the path to the folder that you want. Be sure to mark it as Public so it can have the most availability across the network.

Click OK and then Apply.

Using Gnome

Gnome doesn't have a samba configuration tool integrated on the desktop but it uses other apps such as gnosamba and gsambad which is a gtk app. You need to install it first and then edit it using it.

You can download gsambad from [here].

Open Gsambad and select Server Setup, you need to be root so type your root password to use it properly.

Fill in the first questions such as server hostname (name of the machine), Comments, and workgroup.

Choose the security level that you will use from the combo box.

Depending on the security level you can introduce IP ranges to support the accesibility level in your network. 

 Allowed hosts and networks = 127. 192.168.0. 192.168.2.

This will restrict the access to only the PC on your LAN.

Set up the printer and the system such as CUPS to handle the printing calls (if you have a printer server).

To share your folders you can simply go to nautilus and right click and select Share on the folder menu.

Using a Webapp

SWAT is the web interface that lets you configure your samba server it usually runs on the localhost or 127.0.0.1 and on port 901. So after you install it you would be able to access it by going to http://127.0.0.1:901

Distro Specific

Retrieved from "http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Sharing_Files_with_Windows"

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