Sharing folders over the network using Samba in Ubuntu

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May 8, 2011 by Milind Padalkar

Hi everyone!!!

This time I’ll demonstrate how to setup Folder Sharing over the network in Ubuntu with appropriate permissions for each user. This shall be applicable to other linux distributions as well. The shared content will be available on both Microsoft systems as well as on Linux systems. We will be using the Samba package for this purpose. We start with downloading Samba.

Open the terminal (shortcut : Alt+Ctrl+t) and install the samba package

sudo apt-get install samba smbfs system-config-samba

On prompting enter your password to start the download and install process.

Now create the users who you wish to use the shared folders. Say, I want a user shareuser1 to access the shared folder from anywhere on the network. In such a case I will have to create the user shareuser1 on the machine having the shared folders and then connect to the share from other machines on the network using the username shareuser1.

For this tutorial I will create 8 such users.

sudo useradd -m shareuser1
sudo useradd -m shareuser2
sudo useradd -m shareuser3
sudo useradd -m shareuser4
sudo useradd -m shareuser5
sudo useradd -m shareuser6
sudo useradd -m shareuser7
sudo useradd -m shareuser8

To check if the users are successfully created, check the /etc/passwd file

cat /etc/passwd

cat /etc/passwd

If the usernames are not mentioned here, then something went wrong. Read the man useradd page in the terminal and do the needful. If you get the output similar to the above then go ahead.

Let us assign the newly created users to various groups as follows.

shareuser1, shareuser2  in sharegroup1

shareuser1, shareuser2, shareuser3  in sharegroup2

shareuser4, shareuser5, shareuser6  in sharegroup3

shareuser4, shareuser7, shareuser8  in sharegroup4

shareuser2, shareuser5, shareuser6  in sharegroup5

First create the groups using sudo groupadd <groupname>.

sudo groupadd sharegroup1
sudo groupadd sharegroup2
sudo groupadd sharegroup3
sudo groupadd sharegroup4
sudo groupadd sharegroup5

Now assign users to these groups using the format sudo usermod -G <group list separated by comma(,)> <username>.

sudo usermod -G sharegroup1,sharegroup2 shareuser1
sudo usermod -G sharegroup1,sharegroup2,sharegroup5 shareuser2
sudo usermod -G sharegroup2 shareuser3
sudo usermod -G sharegroup3,sharegroup4 shareuser4
sudo usermod -G sharegroup3,sharegroup5 shareuser5
sudo usermod -G sharegroup3,sharegroup5 shareuser6
sudo usermod -G sharegroup4 shareuser7
sudo usermod -G sharegroup4 shareuser8

Check if the groups are properly assigned to each user using the format groups username. Here I show it for shareuser2.

groups shareuser2

Output :

groups shareuser2

To enable a user to use a share, an entry must be made in the local smbpasswd file. For each user we create a such an entry using sudo smbpasswd -a <username>.

sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser1
sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser2
sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser3
sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser4
sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser5
sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser6
sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser7
sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser8

Output:

sudo smbpasswd -a shareuser1

Now that the users and groups are set up, we can move to configuring Samba. Make sure that the partitions consisting the folders to be shared are mounted with proper permissions. You may read the post on Auto-mounting NTFS partitions at boot time. Before configure the shares, I suggest to backup the original samba configuration file.

sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.bkp

We are now ready to configure our shares.

Start the terminal and open the smb.conf file. This file consists the configuration for the shares.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Go to the end of this file (Shortcut : press and hold Ctrl+v till you reach the end of the file). Use the following skeleton to configure the shares.

[Share-name] # A name that you want to display for this share

<tab>path = # path to the folder to be shared

<tab>valid users = # list of valid users. ( ex. @administrators, @users, administrator ). Those starting with @ are groups.
<tab>writeable = # yes/no
<tab>browseable = # yes/no
<tab>read list = # list of users and groups who are allowed to read this share.
<tab>write list = # list of user and groups who are given permission to write to this share.
<tab>guest ok = # yes/no

 

You may refer SambaConf file as a complete guide for shares and available options. In my case I want permissions to various shares as follows.

/media/sda7/Videos to be readable by sharegroup1 and writable by shareuser1.

/media/sda7/Docs to be readable by sharegroup2, sharegroup3, sharegroup4, sharegroup5 and writable by sharegroup3 and shareuser1.

/media/sda6/Pics to be readable by sharegroup5, shareuser7 and writable by shareuser7.

/media/sda6/Desktop to be readable to all.

To achieve the this I add the following lines to the end of /etc/samba/smb.conf file.

[Videos]
    path = /media/sda7/Videos/
    valid users = @sharegroup1, shareuser1
    browseable = yes
    writeable = yes
    read list = @sharegroup1, shareuser1
    write list = shareuser1
#    guest ok =

[Docs]
    path = /media/sda7/Docs/
    valid users = @sharegroup2, @sharegroup3, @sharegroup4, @sharegroup5, shareuser1
    browseable = yes
    writeable = yes
    read list = @sharegroup2, @sharegroup3, @sharegroup4, @sharegroup5, shareuser1
    write list = shareuser1, @sharegroup3
#    guest ok =

[Pics]
    path = /media/sda6/Pics/
    valid users = @sharegroup5, shareuser7
    browseable = yes
    writeable = yes
    read list = @sharegroup5, shareuser7
    write list = shareuser7
#    guest ok =

[Desktop]
    path = /media/sda6/Desktop/
    browseable = yes
    writeable = no
    guest ok =yes

Here’s my attached smb.conf file. Now restart the samba service.

sudo service smbd restart

And you are done!!! You should be able to access your shares from your Windows as well as Linux machines, giving the correct username and password for the shares in mapping the network drive. 🙂

Note : To remove a user from the local smbpasswd file enter the command

sudo smbpasswd -x shareuser1

To remove a user account from your system enter,

sudo userdel -r shareuser1

To remove a group, enter

sudo groupdel sharegroup1

🙂 🙂 🙂

You may also have a look at a helpful suggestion by Emre.

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