Ubuntu 9.10 Samba Standalone Server With tdbsam Backend

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
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Last edited 12/15/2009

This tutorial explains the installation of a Samba fileserver on Ubuntu 9.10 and how to configure it to share files over the SMB protocol as well as how to add users. Samba is configured as a standalone server, not as a domain controller. In the resulting setup, every user has his own home directory accessible via the SMB protocol and all users have a shared directory with read-/write access.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

I'm using an Ubuntu 9.10 system here with the hostname server1.example.com and the IP address 192.168.0.100.

I'm running all the steps in this tutorial with root privileges, so make sure you're logged in as root:

sudo su

2 Installing Samba

Connect to your server on the shell and install the Samba packages:

aptitude install libcupsys2 samba samba-common

Edit the smb.conf file:

vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

In the global section, remove the "#" at the beginning of the line security = user so that it looks like this:

[...]
# "security = user" is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account
# in this server for every user accessing the server. See
# /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/ServerType.html
# in the samba-doc package for details.
   security = user
[...]

This enables Linux system users to log in to the Samba server.

Close the file and restart Samba:

/etc/init.d/samba restart

3 Adding Samba Shares

Now I will add a share that is accessible by all users.

Create the directory for sharing the files and change the group to the users group:

mkdir -p /home/shares/allusers
chown -R root:users /home/shares/allusers/
chmod -R ug+rwx,o+rx-w /home/shares/allusers/

At the end of the file /etc/samba/smb.conf add the following lines:

vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

[...]
[allusers]
  comment = All Users
  path = /home/shares/allusers
  valid users = @users
  force group = users
  create mask = 0660
  directory mask = 0771
  writable = yes

If you want all users to be able to read and write to their home directories via Samba, add the following lines to /etc/samba/smb.conf:

[...]
[homes]
   comment = Home Directories
   browseable = no
   valid users = %S
   writable = yes
   create mask = 0700
   directory mask = 0700

Now we restart Samba:

/etc/init.d/samba restart

4 Adding And Managing Users

In this example, I will add a user named tom. You can add as many users as you need in the same way, just replace the username tom with the desired username in the commands.

useradd tom -m -G users

Set a password for tom in the Linux system user database. If the user tom should not be able to log in to the Linux system, skip this step.

passwd tom

-> Enter the password for the new user.

Now add the user to the Samba user database:

smbpasswd -a tom

-> Enter the password for the new user.

Now you should be able to log in from your Windows workstation with the file explorer (address is \\192.168.0.100 or \\192.168.0.100\tom for tom's home directory) using the username tom and the chosen password and store files on the Linux server either in tom's home directory or in the public shared directory.

5 Links

• Samba: http://www.samba.org/
• Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/