I recently setup a Samba share on my Linux Mint system to allow file sharing with other devices on my network. This post outlines the steps I took to install and configure Samba, create a user and group, set up the share directory, and ensure everything is working correctly.
While it is possible to do this in the UI, I prefer to do it via the command line for better control and understanding of the process. This guide assumes you have a basic understanding of Linux commands and have administrative access to your Linux Mint system.
This guide should work on any Debian-based distribution, including Ubuntu and its derivatives.
Install and Configure
First, lets check everything is up to date:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
Now, install Samba:
sudo apt install samba
We now need to edit the Samba config file to set up the share. Open the Samba configuration file in a text editor. You can use nano or any other text editor of your choice:
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
Add the following to the end of the file:
[share]
# This share requires authentication to access
path = /srv/samba/share/
read only = no
inherit permissions = yes
This will create a share named share that points to the directory /srv/samba/share/ (we will create this folder later). The read only = no line allows users to write to the share, and inherit permissions = yes ensures that new files created in the share inherit the permissions of the directory.
Create the Samba User and Group
Now we need to create a user and group for Samba. This user will be used to access the shared directory.
Create a new user called shareUser (with no home directory and no login shell):
sudo useradd -M -s /sbin/nologin shareUser
Set a password for the user:
sudo passwd shareUser
Next, we need to add this user to Samba’s user database. This allows the user to authenticate when accessing the Samba share. When prompted, set a password for the Samba user. This can be the same as the system user password or different, depending on your preference.
sudo smbpasswd -a shareUser
Next, we create a user group for the Samba share. This group will be used to manage access to the shared directory.
sudo groupadd shareGroup
usermod -aG shareGroup shareUser
Create the share directory
Create the directory for the share. This is where the files will be stored that you want to share over the network:
sudo mkdir -p /srv/samba/share/
Change the ownership and permissions of the share directory:
sudo chgrp -R shareGroup /srv/samba/share/
sudo chmod 2770 /srv/samba/share/
Restart Samba Service
After making changes to the Samba configuration file, you need to restart the Samba services to apply the changes:
smbd
Test the Samba Configuration
To ensure that your Samba configuration is correct, run the following command:
testparm -s
All Done
You should now be able to access the Samba share from other devices on your network. You can do this by entering the following in the file manager of another Linux machine or Windows machine:
\\<your-linux-mint-ip-address>\share
or alternatively you can use the smbclient command from the terminal:
smbclient -U shareUser //your-linux-mint-ip-address/share
Troubleshooting
If you run into problems accessing the share, here are some common troubleshooting steps:
Check Network Connectivity
Ensure that your Linux Mint machine is connected to the network and that you can ping it from other devices.
Allow Samba through the firewall
This one always gets me! If you have a firewall enabled, you need to allow Samba traffic. If you’re using UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall), you can do this with the following command:
sudo ufw allow Samba
Check the Samba Service Status
To check if the Samba service is running, you can use the following command:
sudo systemctl status smbd
If the service is not running, you can start it with:
sudo systemctl start smbd
Check for any errors on startup.
Check the logs
If you encounter any issues, you can check the Samba logs for more information. The logs are typically located in /var/log/samba/. You can view the log files using:
sudo less /var/log/samba/log.smbd
Discovering the Share
If you want the share to be discoverable by other devices on the network, consider investigating and using services such as avahi-daemon and wsdd-service.