samba configuration in archLinux

Samba is a tool to share file through the internet for linux. By applying samba, users are able to share file between different operating systems, Linux, MacOS and Windows.

Server side

1. install samba

sudo pacman -S samba

2. configuration (easy way)

In this step, we need to modify the file /etc/samba/smb.conf. But you may not find the file in you computer. You could download one as follow:

wget "https://git.samba.org/samba.git/?p=samba.git;a=blob_plain;f=examples/smb.conf.default;hb=HEAD" -O /etc/samba/smb.conf

Then, modify the file /etc/samba/smb.conf. In that file, we will find the follow lines.

...
#============================ Share Definitions ==============================
[homes]
   comment = Home Directories
   browseable = no
   writable = yes
...

We modified it to

...
#============================ Share Definitions ==============================
[homes]
   comment = Home Directories
   browseable = yes
   writable = yes
...

3. start the samba service

sudo systemctl enable smbd # I'm not very sure about this. It may made the smbd.service starts once the machine is start.
sudo systemctl start smbd # start the smbd.service immediately.

add a samba password for your user

samba uses the account in the system, but it doesn’t use the system account password, we need to set up a Samba password for our user account:

sudo smbpasswd -a userName # then, input password for samba as asked.

Client side

for Windows

Just open file explorer, input \\serverIP in the address bar. In the example, the server IP is 192.168.164.128.

Then, windows will ask for username and password. Type in what we have just set. Now, we can access the files in archLinux from Windows.

for Linux

In Linux, what typed in the address bar of the file explorer is smb://serverIP. Ther server could be a Linux computer installed samba or a Windows computer sharing files. This step will be like this:

reference:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Samba
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Samba_(%E7%AE%80%E4%BD%93%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87)
Install and Configure Samba | Ubuntu tutorials
https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/install-and-configure-samba#0