Can't get network on PI to show other computers on my home workgroup network

[1775]

I was going to post this to beginner but thought I should post this here first. I am pretty much still a NOOB when it comes to Raspberry Pi. I just installed Buster. The Pi is connected to my local network switch with an Ethernet cable. Internet works. Samba has allowed me to show the PI as a computer on the network to all other computers on the network. When I open Go - Network - on the screen in smb-root which goes to smb:/// is an icon for my network workgroup name and an icon called "WORKGROUP" that when opened contains the USB drive that is connected to my network router as a NAS drive - and clicking that folder opens to the drive name and that drive mounts when I click that - and stays mounted (which is good). The workgroup name has been entered into smb.conf.

The problem is that when I click on the icon with my workgroup name lets say XYZ - I get an error message:

Failed to retrieve share list from server:Success

and clicking OK on that another error screen opens:

The specified location is not mounted.

I have google searched all of this and what comes up I really don't understand. What I do find is that with a wired Ethernet connection from the network switch to the Pi this all should work automatically - and I should see all online PCs on the network with only the addition of the workgroup name in the smb.conf file - which I have done.

I can get from a Win PC on the network to a shared folder on the PI. I can't get from the Pi to the workgroup "XYZ" computers - and can't even see them on the Pi on the Network in the File Manager.

What I am asking for - I guess - is a simple to follow step by step on how to just see and access the other computers on my network - all have share folders - all are either in Windows 7 or 10. I have tried turning the firewall off on one of the network computers to see if that was keeping the Pi from finding it. That had no effect. Same results. Very frustrating.

All and any help is greatly appreciated - thanks in advance!

[thagrol]

Firstly, the problem is unlikely to be samba related. That's the server software for sharing data. It's not what does the network browsing.

Secondly, this is likely to be due to the Windows end.

Microsoft removed support for v1 of the smb/cifs protocol that handles all the network browsing stuff. I believe it's possible to turn it back on but I've no idea how and where to look on either windows 7 or 10. Sorry.

Your network router probably does use the v1 protocol (my ISP provider router does )

Back in the day it usually did just work but smb v1 is a huge security hole.

[bls]

Microsoft removed support for v1 of the smb/cifs protocol that handles all the network browsing stuff. I believe it's possible to turn it back on but I've no idea how and where to look on either windows 7 or 10. Sorry.

On Windows 10, get to the Control Panel (Windows-R control or go through Settings|Apps and Features and then click Programs and Settings (RH column under Related Settings). Then in Control Panel, Select Programs and Features, then "Turn Windows Features On and Off".

Pshew! After all that, you'll get a little dialog box called "Windows Features". Scroll down through that to "SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support". Not sure whether you need Client, Server, or Both to make this work. Perhaps OP can sort this out and reply here for others.

[1775]

My PC is not on Win10 - it is on Win 7. I went to Turn on Windows Features and there was no setting for SMB in any way. I have used this computer to connect to RaspPi networks in the past with older Raspbian OS version. ( I know Win 7 is no longer supported - there is too much software we rely on that will not run on Win 10.)

One thing that has occurred to me that might be causing this problem is that I set up a Plex Media server on this install which works. To do this I had to set the PI to a static IP. Could this be causing the inability to get to the WIndow's workgroup from the Pi?

When I looked at the settings of the PI this came up for "Scope" (which I have no idea what that is or what the following means) -

Scope global dynamic noprefixroute eth0


And if it is the Static IP for the PI - I have been looking for how to get a Pi to see network computers when there is a Static IP on the PI - but I have not been able to follow clearly what to do to enable that.

At best now I have a Folder on the Pi that is shared - and the network computers can see the Pi and connect to that folder - so to get files from the network to the Pi or from the pi to the network I am using that one folder - but I really would like to just be able to bring up the whole network and use it as I do with the rest of the network.

Again, thanks for any help.

[bls]

According to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... mbv1-v2-v3, CIFS1 is enabled by default on Windows 7, but you might want to review this page to make sure that it didn't get turned off somehow.

If you verify that's not the problem, then perhaps you could succinctly restate the problem, what works, and what doesn't work? I'm having trouble sorting through it all at this point.

[hortimech]

There are two ways to get a computer to show in Explorer on Windows, 'Network Browsing' and 'Network Discovery'. The former requires SMBv1 which is insecure, so you should turn it off, but when you do, you lose 'Network Browsing'. This leaves 'Network Discovery' which uses a different protocol and one that Samba does not provide, but you can use this with Samba: https://github.com/christgau/wsdd

I take it you are using the standard Raspbian Samba packages (4.9.5), so to turn off SMBv1, add these lines to your smb.conf:

Code: Select all

client min protocol = SMB2_02
server min protocol = SMB2_02

If after doing this, you are still denied access, then please post your smb.conf (preferably without any lines that start with a '#' or a ';')