Cannot Access Fedora Shares

[Brianc51]

Hi, this is my first post, and I thank anyone that helps in advance.
I am a Linux newbie, and this is my third attempt in 5 years to become a regular user, and drop microsoft once and for all. Unfortunately, I am having difficulties. Normally it's a good way to learn, but I've been spinning my wheels for 4 days on one problem. It's compounded by the fact that I'm just learning even basic commands. So, please be patient.
I have 3 machines. 1)tabletop with Fedora 13, Name: Trout, wired network connection
2)tabletop with winxp, name: bdc, wired network connection
3)laptop with winxp, name: bclaptop, wireless network connection

From Trout, I can access share folder named 'share' on bclaptop. I can also access 'shareddocs' on bdc.
From both Xp machines I can access the other xp machines shared folders, but cannot access the shares on Trout, these shares names are 'share' and 'lshare'. On Trout GUI file browser if I go to 'Network' find 'Trout' (looking at itself on the network) I get "Unable to mount location: failed to mount windows share".

I can ping any other machine from any machine using either it's name or IP address. The windows machines do see Trout. The Linux shares can be seen in XP's 'My Network Places'.

The network is on a 2-wire router/modem. The original windows network name (workgroup?) is 'Timber'. The workgroup created by Samba is 'mygroup'. They appear to be different workgroups, and Trout is in 'mygroup', and xp machines are in 'Timber'. I don't understand this part enough to know if this is significant.

I "believe" I have the permissions wide open for 'lshare', but not 100% certain on any of this (newbie), so ask anything, please.
I fumbled through Samba trying first to do it with text editor, then ended up with GUI Samba Editor. Looks to me like services smbd and nmbd are running. The Samba Editor made a rather large smb.conf file, so I'll just put what I think is relevant. Tell me if it's not enough and I'll post whatever else is needed.
workgroup = mygroup
server string = Samba Server Version %v
security = user
#============================ Share Definitions ==============================

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no
writable = yes
; valid users = %S
; valid users = MYDOMAIN\%S

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
browseable = no
; guest ok = no
; writable = No
printable = yes

# Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons:
; [netlogon]
; comment = Network Logon Service
; path = /var/lib/samba/netlogon
; guest ok = yes
; writable = no
; share modes = no

# Un-comment the following to provide a specific roving profile share.
# The default is to use the user's home directory:
; [Profiles]
; path = /var/lib/samba/profiles
; browseable = no
; guest ok = yes

# A publicly accessible directory that is read only, except for users in the
# "staff" group (which have write permissions):
; [public]
; comment = Public Stuff
; path = /home/samba
; public = yes
; writable = yes
; printable = no
; write list = +staff

[share]
path = /media/Win Dump/share
read only = no
; browseable = yes
valid users = Brian

[lshare]
path = /home/Brian/lshare
read only = no
; browseable = yes
guest ok = yes


I hope this is enough info, if not I will provide more. Thank you for any assistance.

Brian

[glennzo]

You're going to need to start by changing the samba workgroup to timber and work from there. I recommend the most minimal smb.conf you can get away with for starters. Once things are working as expected you can make other changes.

workgroup = timber
server string = Samba Server Version %v
security = user
# Comment by Glenn - Change security to share if things still don't work out
#============================ Share Definitions ==============================

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no
writable = yes

# Comment by Glenn - Get rid of the printer stanza if you're not sharing printers attached to a this Linux box.
[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
browseable = no
printable = yes

[share]
path = /media/Win Dump/share
read only = no
valid users = Brian

[lshare]
path = /home/Brian/lshare
read only = no
guest ok = yes

Any time you make a change to smb.conf you need to run testparm. This utility looks at the smb.conf code to see if there are any errors. If there are errors, fix them, then restart smb and nmb

su -c 'service smb restart'
su -c 'service nmb restart'

You also want to make sure that smb and nmb are started at boot.

su -c 'chkconfig --level 35 smb on'
su -c 'chkconfig --level 35 nmb on'

Give this a whirl and see what you get.

[Brianc51]

Hi Glenn and thank you for your response. I felt as if the workgroup should be the same, but was unsure, I was glad to see your statement that it should be changed. Anyway, I have changed it, and it looks more organized to me, having them all in the same group.
The problem persists though. I'm wondering if it is significant that I can't access the shares on this machine when trying to look back at itself through the network, or if this is a red herring. In a normally working setup, should a user be able to go to network, and look back at the machine they are on, and mount the shares on that machine?

Thanks for the help,

Brian

P.S. I have gotten rid of the printer stanza as you suggested.

[glennzo]

Not sure about "looking back". You say the problem persists. Can you post your modified smb.conf please?

By the way, you can check the status of services using

service smb status
service nmb status

Try turning off the Linux firewall and see if that helps. You can also disable SELinux temporarily too if necessary, as a disgnostic measure, although I would think that if SELinux was in the way you would be notified.


Here's smb.conf on my "server".

#======================= Global Settings =====================================
[global]
        workgroup = JOHNSON
        server string = Samba Server Version %v
        netbios name = RAFAEL
        log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
        max log size = 50
        security = share

#============================ Share Definitions ==============================
[temp]
        Comment = Temp Folder
        path = /temp
        public = yes
        writeable = yes
        browseable = yes

[backup]
        Comment = Backup folder
        path = /media/disk2/qback/
        public = yes
        writeable = yes
        browseable = yes

[Brianc51]

My smb.conf file:

workgroup = timber
server string = Samba Server Version %v
security = share
# Comment by Glenn - Change security to share if things still don't work out
#============================ Share Definitions ==============================

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no
writable = yes

[share]
path = /media/Win Dump/share
read only = no
valid users = Brian

[lshare]
path = /home/Brian/lshare
read only = no
guest ok = yes





I have disabled the firewall and still nothing. I don't how to disable SElinux or understand what it is, or what it does.

When I try to access the file 'lshare' on the fedora machine from the windows machine, the message I get is

"\\Trout\lshare is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

Access is denied."

It does not even get to the point where it should be asking me for a password.

Thanks again for your time,

Brian

[glennzo]

On the top panel. System > Administration > SELinux Management.

I believe that only user Brian can access the shares under /home/Brian. Let's make a temporary folder, share it and see if you have access to it from Windows.

su
<password>
mkdir/ temp
chmod a+rw temp

Edit smb.conf and add

[temp]
Comment = Temp Folder
path = /temp
public = yes
writeable = yes
browseable = yes

Save and exit the editor. Run testparm and restart the services

service smb restart
service nmb restart

See if the temp share is accessible from the Windows machine.

[Brianc51]

Hi, Added the Temp folder and edited and restarted Samba, and restarted all computers for good measure, but still no go.
Windows machines show the new Temp folder in 'My network Places", but no password prompt, and this time the message is slightly different,
"\\Trout\Temp is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.
The network path was not found." rather than "access is denied."

Thanks again for helping.

Brian

[glennzo]

Have you actually installed Samba? It is there on a fresh install, at least in spirit, but yum install samba works wonders. I think you must have or restarting the services would yield errors.

Try chmod a+rw /temp. Then restart the services and see if you can browse the share.

No password is probably because I suggested security=share.

[Brianc51]

Hello Glenn,

Originally Posted by glennzo

Try chmod a+rw /temp. Then restart the services and see if you can browse the share.

After doing this, I've viewed the permissions in "/" where temp is located, and it appears that all permissions have been set for the temp directory, as we have intended.

Originally Posted by glennzo

No password is probably because I suggested security=share.

There was no prompt for password even before while security=user.

I've been trying to catch up and become competent by reading whatever I can find about Samba, and reading forums searching for others with the same problem. Unfortunately, if the cases are getting solved, they don't post the outcome or the solution.

The "access denied" part is obviously telling us something different than "path not found", is there a way to 'see' the request coming from windows in order to determine that the info windows is providing matches what samba is looking for?
Please don't let my rambling questions distract from your train of thought if you have something in mind, I'm just throwing things out there.

Thanks again,
Brian

[glennzo]

Do me a favor please. Just for kicks, create a user on one of the Windows machines. Make sure that the user has the same name as the user on the Linux machine with the /temp folder that you are trying to access. Log into Windows as this new user. See if the new Windows user can then access the /temp folder on the Linux machine.

[glennzo]

Back to post #8 Brian. Have you actually done a yum install samba?

[Brianc51]

I have created a user 'Bob' on the windows machine. On Fedora machine I created user 'Bob', but was unsure what group to put this account in, so I put him in group 'users', should he be in group 'Brian'?
I also added user 'Bob' to Samba using smbpasswd, and was careful to keep passwords the same in all three instances(windows,fedora,samba). Samba doesn't ask about group, I assume it doesn't matter to samba?

Originally Posted by glennzo

Back to post #8 Brian. Have you actually done a yum install samba?

I don't quite understand. I mean I'm pretty sure I have done this, but if I hadn't wouldn't I be getting errors whenever I typed in samba related commands? Perhaps this is more complicated than I realized?
result of # service smb status
is, smbd (pid 11488) is running...
and # service nmb status
is, nmbd (pid 11509) is running...
Is this an indication that samba is installed and running properly?

Thanks,
Brian

[glennzo]

Originally Posted by Brianc51

I have created a user 'Bob' on the windows machine. On Fedora machine I created user 'Bob', but was unsure what group to put this account in, so I put him in group 'users', should he be in group 'Brian'?
I also added user 'Bob' to Samba using smbpasswd, and was careful to keep passwords the same in all three instances(windows,fedora,samba). Samba doesn't ask about group, I assume it doesn't matter to samba?

Don't know what group Bob needs to be in. I'm a command line kind of guy so I would have just added a user that way so there would have been no groups to choose from.

useradd bob
passwd bob

I don't quite understand. I mean I'm pretty sure I have done this, but if I hadn't wouldn't I be getting errors whenever I typed in samba related commands? Perhaps this is more complicated than I realized?
result of # service smb status
is, smbd (pid 11488) is running...
and # service nmb status
is, nmbd (pid 11509) is running...
Is this an indication that samba is installed and running properly?

Thanks,
Brian

Yep. Seems you're good there. So what happens when you log in as Bob on the Windows machine and try to access a share on the Linux machine?

Also, I can't emphasize enough restarting smb and nmb after any change to smb.conf.

[Brianc51]

Originally Posted by glennzo

Yep. Seems you're good there. So what happens when you log in as Bob on the Windows machine and try to access a share on the Linux machine?

Sorry, forgot to report the results.
First, I think you need one more piece of info about my fedora machine. One of the shares that I haven't talked about much is folder "share". The reason being that I wanted to keep troubleshooting simple, and I have a separate problem there. The reason that I bring it up now is there has been a change involving that folder.
"share" is on a separate partition that is 'FAT' formatted, and when I try to change the permissions on the "share", it does not allow me to in the fedora GUI, and from bash I can't figure out how to mount the drive (that I assume is sdb2). If I could have, I would have changed permissions on the share and/or drive, which are both currently set for user 'root'. At any rate, even If I get that figured out, it won't solve the problem of not accessing shares in root directory.

Anyway, results:
From windows with user 'Bob', I cannot login to 'temp' or 'lshare', not even getting a password prompt. With 'share' which is the other folder that we have done nothing with, and has permissions limited to user (Root in this case), I now get a password prompt. The user name is "ghosted" so I can't change it, and is not "Bob", it is "TROUT\Guest". Typing in Bob's password does not work, and leaving it blank does not work. Both cases result in it asking again for password, over and over.

Originally Posted by glennzo

Also, I can't emphasize enough restarting smb and nmb after any change to smb.conf.

I have remembered your advice on this and am doing it each time. Was I supposed to change smb.conf in the last step? If so I missed something.

Thanks,
Brian

[glennzo]

You weren't supposed to change anything in smb.conf in the last step.

How about we concentrate only on the /temp folder on the Fedora computer for now and try to access that folder from the same Windows box every time. That will make things a lot less complicated for troubleshooting purposes.

Let's create a new smb.conf, moving your existing smb.conf out of the way for the time being. Open a terminal and log in as root.

su -
<password>

Change to /etc/samba

cd /etc/samba

Move the existing file.

mv smb.conf smb.conf.old

Create a new file by opening it in a text editor.

nano smb.conf

Add the following to this new file.

#======================= Global Settings =====================================
[global]
        workgroup = TIMBER
        server string = Samba Server Version %v
        netbios name = <put the hostname here>
        log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
        max log size = 50
        security = share

#============================ Share Definitions ==============================
[temp]
        comment = Temp Folder
        path = /temp
        browseable = yes
        writable = yes
        public = yes

Save and exit, run testparm and restart smb / nmb. Try to view /temp from the WIndows box.