How to get a basic Samba setup up and running.

Tested on FreeBSD 6
Samba is a powerful application capable of performing many functions.
In this howto I will explain howto to get basic file sharing working with your Microsoft machines.

First you need to install Samba so,
# cd /usr/ports/net/samba3
# make install clean

This should place a startup script in /usr/local/etc/rc.d called samba.sh
# chmod 700 /usr/local/etc/rc.d/samba.sh

Now edit you rc.conf to start samba on boot.
# vi /etc/rc.conf
Add
samba_enable=”YES”

Now create a configuration file for samba to use.
# vi /usr/local/etc/smb.conf
Add
[global]
netbios name = COMPUTERNAME
workgroup = WORKGROUP
security = user
log file = /var/log/samba.log
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
os level = 99

[homes]
read only = no
guest ok = no
browseable = no

Change COMPUTERNAME and WORKGROUP to your liking.
The homes section will setup a share for each users home directory.
Windows users will only see the directory for the user that they are logged into.

If you want to setup a normal share that everyone who is authenticated can see, add this to smb.conf
[sharename]
path = /path/to/shared/directory
read only = no
guest ok = no

The port sets up a directory called /var/log/samba which I delete, but that is up to you.
# cd /var/log
# rm -rf samba
# touch samba.log
# chmod 600 samba.log

Now set your newsyslog.conf to rotate the files, add this to /etc/newsyslog.conf
/var/log/samba.log 600 3 300 * Z
If you don’t understand this man newsyslog

With this configuration you must have a real unix user account for each samba account.
These should match the username on the Microsoft machine you will be connecting with.

example from 5.3
home# adduser
Username: testuser
Full name:
Uid (Leave empty for default):
Login group [testuser]:
Login group is testuser. Invite testuser into other groups? []:
Login class [default]:
Shell (sh csh tcsh bash nologin) [sh]: bash
Home directory [/home/testuser]:
Use password-based authentication? [yes]:
Use an empty password? (yes/no) [no]:
Use a random password? (yes/no) [no]:
Enter password:
Enter password again:
Lock out the account after creation? [no]:
Username : testuser
Password : *****
Full Name :
Uid : 1004
Class :
Groups : testuser
Home : /home/testuser
Shell : /usr/local/bin/bash
Locked : no
OK? (yes/no): y
adduser: INFO: Successfully added (testuser) to the user database.
Add another user? (yes/no): n

You may wish to change the default shell to /sbin/false or something similar so that this username cannot login through ssh, etc…

After you have setup the the unix user, you must setup the samba username.
Use the same password that you use on your Microsoft machines so you will not have to login to access your shares.
It is not recommended, but smbpasswd will take a blank password in case you don’t use one on your Microsoft machine.
# smbpasswd -a testuser
New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:
Added user testuser.

You should now be ready to start the samba daemons.
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/samba.sh start
# ps -waux | grep mbd
root 16158 0.0 0.6 5360 3096 ?? Ss 8:20PM 0:00.09 /usr/local/sbin/nmbd -D -s /usr/local/etc/smb.conf
root 16164 0.0 0.9 7120 4600 ?? Is 8:20PM 0:00.01 /usr/local/sbin/smbd -D -s /usr/local/etc/smb.conf
root 16166 0.0 0.9 7120 4624 ?? I 8:20PM 0:00.00 /usr/local/sbin/smbd -D -s /usr/local/etc/smb.conf
root 16168 0.0 1.0 7488 4984 ?? S 8:21PM 0:00.05 /usr/local/sbin/smbd -D -s /usr/local/etc/smb.conf

Provided you don’t have the MS stuff blocked in your firewall, you should be able to test your setup now.
Now try to connect from your Microsoft machine
C:> net view \\COMPUTERNAME
Shared resources at COMPUTERNAME

Samba 3.0.9

Share name Type Used as Comment

——————————————————————————-
testuser Disk Home directory of testuser
The command completed successfully.

C:>net use z: \\COMPUTERNAME\testuser
The command completed successfully.

You should now have a mapped drive to your BSD Machine.