Ubuntu
samba package

Weird nautilus-share configuration issue

Asked by Apteryx

I've been fighting with network shares in Ubuntu since Ubuntu 8.04. I'm now using Ubuntu 9.10, and I still have this problem! So I could do with some help :)

Ok first, here is what I'm trying to do : create a stupid simple shared folder in my home with password-less access for anyone on the same local network (LAN). Here's how I do it :

a) Create folder to be shared in my home, say ~/Public
b) Right click on this folder, then choose "Sharing Options" or something like this.
c) Click on the three fiels, to share, allow write access, and allow guest access respectively.
d) It asked to install some components (nautilus-share I think)
e) Log out & in

Up to now it seems good. No warning, no error displayed. But if I go to "Places -> Network -> MyDesktopName" and try to click on my shared folder, it says : "Cannot mount folder : Impossible to mount Windows Share" or something along those lines.

Anyone who tries to access my shares (they are listed) get this error message. I've tried uninstalling anything samba related (with --purge option) and then trying to share a folder from scratch, with the same results. Interestingly, with VirtualBox I can use this share, but only with one account.

Could a nautilus-share/samba expert help me resolving this "mystery", please? I'm out of ideas (I've messed up with smb.conf, read countless forums threads, but at last...)

Thanks in advance!

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Apteryx
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Apteryx (maxco) said : 		#1

Actually I found the solution while writing my question! I posted to share a problem/solution pair to our questions database :)

So it seems that my shares were password protected (this system is a bit old, many updates!) which I don't know / remember how it got there. But it was blocking access!

Now Nautilus should have popped a password request (maybe there is already a bug for this?) so I could get a hint about it. Nonetheless, I've tried doing this in a terminal to reset my samba password :

sudo smbpasswd -U $USERNAME

and left the password blank. Instantly fixed my problem! Kudos to MacLane45, poster of this solution in the following thread : http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=256538&p=1

Thanks everyone.

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Apteryx (maxco) said : 		#2

Ok. Sorry to return, but half of the problem subsists : other folks on my network cannot access my shares : they get the error message I use to get on my own shares : "Cannot mount folder : Impossible to mount Windows Share".

Any help to debug this is still very welcomed!

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Apteryx (maxco) said : 		#3

As a first hint : I've launched Ubuntu 9.10 and ediffed (using emacs) the two smb.conf file. They are the same.
Also ran testparm -v > toafile.txt on my Ubuntu 9.10 and LiveCD Ubuntu 9.10 : there is no difference.

So my machine is configured by default, at least when it comes to smb.conf. I'll try to look in the direction of usershare configuration, although I don't know what files are important...

By the way, it's not a firewall issue : ufw is not activated, as can be seen after I installed gufw (gui).

Could someone could create (using right click logic) a share in Ubuntu 9.10 and see if it can be accessed without error from another machine? This could at least show that the default configuration is supposed to work. I'll (re)try on my network too.

Thanks,
Maxim

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Apteryx (maxco) said : 		#4

I have a second important information : By default, booting from the LiveCD, I can share a folder and users can access this one without having to enter a password. It works perfectly by default.

Now my problem is I don't want to reinstall my system just for that, so we need to sort out what changed on my system and caused this problem... I've tarballed all samba related files on the LiveCD using this command :
sudo tar -cpPvzf ~/samba.tar.gz `locate *samba*`

I will, as a first try, extract the contents of this archive and overwrite any *samba* related files on my PC, to try to revert all settings to the defaults.

Any hints on this issue is welcome.

Maxim

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Apteryx (maxco) said : 		#5

My trick did not fix the issue... Still cannot share!
I'm stuck, awaiting fresh ideas.

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Apteryx (maxco) said : 		#6

The problem was a permission issue on my home folder. It was not allowing read access to "others".

"chmod 755 ~" fixed the issue! (Right click on your home folder (/home/yourname) and go into Permissions, and check that everyone has at least read access).