2 strange samba problems

[ViViDVeW]

ok been reading the fourms for a while now and they have been a lot of help but i have finaly come across a problem i cant figure out for the life of me.

running gentoo 2.4.25 gs-sources and samba 3.0.2a on a PIII with 2 ide HDs and XP Pro on a 2.4GHz P4 as the client

1st problem is any samba share pointed at the mount point (or any subdir of the mount point) for /dev/hdb1 does not look at the directory. it looks at /tmp, but the local file system sees the mount in the correct place and any share pointed somewhere on hda works fine. My solution to this was to mount hdb1 to the /tmp dir so the samba share and the local file system are in sync, but i want to put a third drive in and don't know if 2 drives can be mounted to the same dir.

2nd problem is that only root can access the samba shares from my xp machine. other users can see but not even browse the shares.
user is listed in samba passwd file
smbpasswd -a steve
and entered the same passwd used on local account
i have checked and made sure permisions are correct for the whole dir tree
chmod -r 777 /tmp
even chaged the owner of the files to see if it worked
chown -r steve /tmp

my smb.conf file is listed below
[global]
workgroup = Thevew
netbios name = Gentoobox
server string = Samba Server %v
log file = /var/log/samba3/log.%m
max log size = 50
hosts allow = 192.168.1. 127. 129.21.129.93
security = user
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
local master = yes
os level = 33
preferred master = yes
dns proxy = no

[120GB]
path /tmp
valid users = root
writeable = yes
public = no
write list = root
[ritter]
path /tmp
valid users = steve
writeable = yes
public = no
write list = steve

any help would be great and thanx

[nobspangle]

Your first problem is easily solved and, I think, solving may sort the other.

The syntax in smb.conf for a path is

[ViViDVeW]

yup samba looks at the correct dir now. cant believe i didnt catch that basic of an error. thanx i didnt know about testparm i'm still not too good with linux and brand new to samba and smb.

still having the 2nd problem tho. cant get any user access to any share unless they log into samba as root.

thanx agian.

[chio]

[ViViDVeW]

thanx for the sugestion but no dice.
cant figure out what i'm doing wrong
keep whondering if i am setting up linux local accounts wrong
useradd -g sambashare steve
passwd steve
smbpasswd -a steve

as far as i know that's all that must be done to add a user for samba sharing, but it don't work.
the only account that works is the one i didn't make (root)

[nobspangle]

could you post the share section for one share from smb.conf and the output from ls -l for the directory above the share root.

[ViViDVeW]

ok been reading and playing around. still cant make it work but found something that would seem to be related. Unless root is in the smbpasswd file, no other user can even see the shares on the network. Samba never even asks for authentication. WinXP displays the access denied dialog if the samba machine is accessed at all, not just the shares.

[ViViDVeW]

//this works

[nobspangle]

can we see some output from the samba log

Also start with something simple on your shares

[sharename]
path = /path
writeable = yes

this is a good start once that's working add more lines

[ViViDVeW]

ok tried a simpler share section but still does not work
if i'm using user level security don’t I need to tell a share what users have access

[nobspangle]

could you show ls -l for /mnt

you only need to specify valid users if you want to limit the users. Also you only need write list for read only shares.


What happens if you create a share with public = yes

[ViViDVeW]

[ViViDVeW]

Ok after about a day of reading and screwing around its works.

couldn’t figure it out until started reading the steps used by samba to authenticate users.

this would only come up if testing multiple samba accounts from the same client.
once winXP finds a user passwd combo that works for a smb server it will always try to log in as that user. So if you try the user and passwd for another users share from the same xp client access will be denied b/c samba or smb(not sure which) will not allow multiple connections from the same IP or netbios name(again not sure which)

the reason only root would work was b/c it was the first user I tried from both xp clients I was using for testing.

thanx for the help nobspangle

next problem 
anyone know how to wipe windows remembered share username and passwords b/c I had to create new winxp accounts with no memory of what they thought the share passwds where to get this to work.

[nobspangle]

I think the moral here is that root shouldn't be used to access samba shares. The best thing to do is to use the same username and password as you use for your xp account, that way you will never be asked for a username and password.

[ViViDVeW]

true. true.

i knew it wasnt the greatest idea but it was only for testing.
it seems that the way windows cashes passwd for smb shares i would have had the same problem with whatever account i tried first.

i was using different passwds b/c i was testing giving friends access to my movies and didnt want them to have to tell me their winxp passwds

is there a systax for passing the user name and passwd from windows as you access a share ie for ftp ftp://username:passwd@www.ftpsite.com

[nobspangle]

if you do map network drive there is an option to connect using a different username and password.

Also you can use the net use command
net use \\computername\sharename /user:username password

Then windows will try to connect using that uername password combination for that share for the rest of the session.