Install and Configure Samba server on linux

Samba is an open source software suite that provides file, directory and printer sharing between SMB/CIFS clients. In this tutorial we will explain how to configure SAMBA server.

First we will configure SAMBA server for anonymous file sharing and then we will configure authenticated SAMBA share.

In this tutorial, we will use following two machines.

Server: 192.168.0.154 Operating System: CentOS 6.0

Client: 192.168.0.110 Operatin System: Windows XP

-Install Samba packages on linux

[root@sambaserver ~]# yum install samba* -y

-Start necessary services on server.

Necessary services required for SAMBA are as follows:

	Service	Daemons	Description
Required	smb	smbd	(SMB/CIFS Server) main samba service which provide user authentication and authorization and file and printer sharing
Required	nmb	nmbd	(NetBIOS name server) Resources browsing
Optional	winbind	winbindd	For host and user name resolution

/etc/init.d/smb start /etc/init.d/nmb start chkconfig smb on chkconfig nmb on

-Configure full access anonymous share

Create a directory for sharing purpose '/share' and provide full access to directory.

[root@sambaserver ~]# mkdir /share

[root@sambaserver ~]# chmod -R 0777 /share/

Edit following lines in /etc/samba/smb.conf

 vi /etc/samba/smb.conf
## At around Line no 75, find 'workgroup' option and set workgroup to a value in which clients #systems are present. We have set following value to windows default workgroup ##
workgroup = WORKGROUP
## At around Line no 81, find 'hosts allow' option and Uncomment and set the IP Range ##
hosts allow = 127. 192.168.1.
## At around Line 100, find security option and set no authentication ##
security = share
## Add the following lines at the bottom ##
[myshare]
path = /share
writable = yes
browsable = yes
guest ok = yes
guest only = yes
create mode = 0777
directory mode = 0777

- Test the SAMBA server for configuration using command 'testparam' .

It will list out all the shares from SAMBA configuration file.

- Open ports and allow SAMBA connections in firewall.

SAMBA used following ports.

Port 137	UDP NetBIOS name service (WINS)
Port 138	UDP NetBIOS datagram
Port 139	TCP NetBIOS Session (TCP), Windows File and Printer Sharing
Port 445	Microsoft-DS Active Directory, Windows shares (TCP)
Port 445	Microsoft-DS SMB file sharing (UDP)

Open mentioned ports in firewall. On CentOS system, we can allow connections on above port by following command.

#iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 137 -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 138 -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 139 -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 445 -j ACCEPT

-Restart iptables service

service iptables restart

-Disable SElinux on server or allow SAMBA sharing in selinux.

In this tutorial we have disabled selinux on server but you can allow SAMBA sharing by following options in selinux.

To disable SElinux, edit file vi /etc/sysconfig/selinux and disable selinux. Server will require reboot after disabling selinux.

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
# enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
# permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
# disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=disabled
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
# targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
# mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

- Allow following options of SAMBA in SElinux.

samba_enable_home_dirs	Enables the sharing of home directories
samba_export_all_ro	Enable read-only access to any directory
samba_export_all_rw	Sets up read/write access to any directory
samba_share_t Default file	which Samba can share

Access SAMBA share from client side.

- Go to Start --> CMD and enter SAMBA server IP.

-Go to my network places and access samba share. In our caes, it will be 'myshare'.

II] Configure authenticated SAMBA share.

- Create a user and group. Add created user to a group and set SMB password for user.

useradd smbtestuser groupadd smbgroup usermod -a -G smbgroup smbtestuser smbpasswd -a smbtestuser New SMB password: Retype new SMB password: Added user smbtestuser

- Create a shared directory and set permissions to that directory.

mkdir /secure/ chmod -R 0755 /secure chown -R smbtestuser:smbgroup /secure/

- Edit smb.conf file and create entry for secure share.

vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

Change parameter 'security = share' to 'security = user' in smb.conf file at around line 100. Security = user [mysecureshare] path = /secure writable = yes browsable = yes guest ok = no valid users = @smbgroup

- Test configuration by command 'testparam'.

- Restart SAMBA services.

/etc/init.d/smb restart /etc/init.d/nmb restart

- You can access secure share by same steps mentioned above. Provide username and password for SAMBA user at the promt.