Raspberry Samba/CIFS Documentation incomplete?

[allanr]

I'm a new Pi user who's just setup Samba to file-share a desktop Pi with a Linux Mint and a Win 7 PC.

I carefully followed the instructions at https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... s/samba.md but just couldn't access the Pi from Mint or Win 7. Always got "Access denied" error.

After some searching, I found some posts which gave a solution, which was to add a Samba password on the Pi for the default user. After this connection was made successfully.

Code: Select all

sudo smbpasswd -a pi

1. - https://elinux.org/R-Pi_NAS
2. - viewtopic.php?p=321858 (see 7 Oct 2014 reply at the end)

It might be helpful to new users if this instruction was included in the Raspberry Samba/CIFS document, or have I missed something?

[hortimech]

Good luck with that, I told them the documentation was wrong, but they didn't want to know.

Try reading the Samba documentation:

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Settin ... one_Server

It doesn't mention the rpi, but it is correct and should point you in the right direction.

[DirkS]

Putting it on the forum is not the correct way to get the docs changed.
You should open an issue on the documentation github site.
Just click on the link at the bottom of the documentation you link to ('View / Edit this document on github')

[jamesh]

Good luck with that, I told them the documentation was wrong, but they didn't want to know.

Try reading the Samba documentation:

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Settin ... one_Server

It doesn't mention the rpi, but it is correct and should point you in the right direction.

How rude. We always want to know about deficiencies in the docs. The correct procedure is noted in the post above. You can even make the change yourself and send it to us as a pull request.

[hortimech]

Not rude, a fact.

A removed myself from git-hub when Microsoft bought it, so I cannot do anything there. I contacted rpi to advise them that the share set up was totally wrong and what came of it ? My first email was ignored and my follow up to it was virtually ignored.

If you are wondering why I am so sure your Samba page is wrong, well, I think I would know, what with being a member of the Samba team.

The rpi Samba page is wrong, it needs updating and I am quite prepared to do this for you, but I will not do it on git-hub.

Rowland Penny
Samba team member

[jamesh]

Not rude, a fact.

A removed myself from git-hub when Microsoft bought it, so I cannot do anything there. I contacted rpi to advise them that the share set up was totally wrong and what came of it ? My first email was ignored and my follow up to it was virtually ignored.

If you are wondering why I am so sure your Samba page is wrong, well, I think I would know, what with being a member of the Samba team.

The rpi Samba page is wrong, it needs updating and I am quite prepared to do this for you, but I will not do it on git-hub.

Rowland Penny
Samba team member

Absolutely not questioning your credentials, I will take documentation corrections from anyone. If one of our our pages is wrong, it's wrong. No docs are perfect, and we rely on people reporting issues to make sure we can make corrections. ISTR I wrote that Samba page, and it did work when I tested it (I always test to make sure docs changes are correct), so not sure why, but I am not a Samba expert by any stretch.

But emailing info@ isn't the correct way of reporting problems with documentation. We get a huge amount of spam on that address, so stuff can be lost. Reporting via Github is the correct mechanism. Now I have no idea why you felt it necessary to remove yourself from Github, it works fine, independent who owns it, and it is what we use. (And gitlab is a bit pants in comparison) It is the correct way of reporting issues with the documentation.

However, since you have offered, please indicate the page where the error is, the paragraph in error, and any replacement text, and I will edit it in.

Thanks for keeping Microsofts Window protocols alive and kicking!

James
Raspberry Pi team member.

[LTolledo]

....but just couldn't access the Pi from Mint

I cant access all my RPis (running Raspbian Stretch with Desktop, [RSwD]) and other samba shares from Linux Mint Tessa (LMT). But my RPis running RSwD can access LMT's samba shares and other PC's/SBC's samba shares.

but running the CLI command smbtree on LMT shows all network shares. Just LMT's GUI file manager cannot access the network shares.

the smb.conf on LMT is exact copy of the one's from RPi's RSwD.

[hortimech]

We (Samba) have moved from git-hub to git-lab, so I have no need for a git-hub account. It was however my decision to close my account before we moved.

Lets take the share at the bottom of the page as an example:

Code: Select all

[share]
    path = /home/pi/shared
    available = yes
    valid users = pi
    read only = no
    browsable = yes
    public = yes
    writable = yes

writable (or writeable) is an inverted synonym for read only, so by setting 'writable = yes' and 'read only = no', you have set the same thing twice.
All shares are available by default, so there is no need for 'available = yes'
All shares are browseable by default, so there is no need for 'browsable = yes'
'public' is a synonym for 'guest ok' and the latter is now preferred.

So taking the above in mind, the share can be better written as:

Code: Select all

[share]
    path = /home/pi/shared
    valid users = pi
    read only = no
    guest ok = yes

I will examine and rewrite the page and send you a copy, what you do with it is up to you

[hortimech]

It wasn't until after my last post that I realised something. You cannot use 'valid user' with 'guest ok'.

If you have 'valid user = pi', then only 'pi' will be able to connect, even if 'guest ok = yes' is set.
If you try to connect as a guest user (this is a user unknown to the OS and Samba), you will get something like this:

Code: Select all

smbclient //192.168.0.27/share -U ./fred
Enter .\fred's password: 
OS=[Windows 6.1] Server=[Samba 4.8.8-Debian]
tree connect failed: NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED

comment out the 'valid user' line and restart Samba and try again and you will get this:

Code: Select all

smbclient //192.168.0.27/share -U ./fred
Enter .\fred's password: 
OS=[Windows 6.1] Server=[Samba 4.8.8-Debian]
smb: \> 

[LTolledo]

Oh and let me add this

Raspbian's default GUI file manager PcManFM cannot (or will not) "remember forever" passwords for connecting to samba shares.
You need to enter it again and again if you want to reconnect to samba shares after every bootup. Quite frustrating.
Maybe its the GUI file manager's fault? Me dont know....

I dont want to edit fstab.