File shariing with 12.1

English Network/Internet
1

I have a desktop running OpenSuSE 12.1. I got a new notebook for Christmas which came with Win7. I have installed SuSE 12.1 and Mandriva on it as well. I want to share files over a wired router with my desktop and the three OS’s on the notebook. What is the best way to do this, NFS, SAMBA? Or something else? And where to go for a newbies how-to on this.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

2

Hi Bob,

I believe that Samba is probably the preferred way if you have a windows requirement.

A good reference is here openSUSE SuSE Linux HOWTOs and Tutorials by Swerdna

Swerdna is one of the Administrators on this forum.

Hope this helps.

John

3

When you throw Windows into the Mix, its got to be Samba instead. Here is another reference you might want to read:

Samba S.W.A.T. - Samba Web Administration Tool Setup for openSUSE - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

4

OK. I thought as much, but thought I would ask the question in case there are alternatives I don’t know about. I did read the Swerdna tut, which is based on older versions of SuSE, and set up the desktop as server and seem to have succeeded at that. When I look in a file manager I see the Samba shares I set up. If I click on one of them it asks for authentication and when I enter the username and pwd I’m pretty sure I set up it keeps asking for authentication. Wondering if there is something in permissions or groups I need to set that I missed.

I started setting up the notebook as a client but don’t seem to have succeeded, as I don’t see it on the server and vice versa. Will read the tut jd suggested as well. Is it possible I would be best served by wiping out my Samba setup and starting over? Or should I set up both systems as servers?

BTW, I am using only SuSE on the notebook at this time.

Now for another wrinkle. I am going to play around with some things with Win7 and linux just for laughs, but I am sure the notebook will ultimately end up being a linux only machine. In that case what would be the best file sharing system?

5

On Wed January 4 2012 08:06 pm, BobTheBull wrote:

>
> OK. I thought as much, but thought I would ask the question in case
> there are alternatives I don’t know about. I did read the Swerdna tut,
> which is based on older versions of SuSE, and set up the desktop as
> server and seem to have succeeded at that. When I look in a file manager
> I see the Samba shares I set up. If I click on one of them it asks for
> authentication and when I enter the username and pwd I’m pretty sure I
> set up it keeps asking for authentication. Wondering if there is
> something in permissions or groups I need to set that I missed.
>
> I started setting up the notebook as a client but don’t seem to have
> succeeded, as I don’t see it on the server and vice versa. Will read the
> tut jd suggested as well. Is it possible I would be best served by
> wiping out my Samba setup and starting over? Or should I set up both
> systems as servers?
>
> BTW, I am using only SuSE on the notebook at this time.
>
> Now for another wrinkle. I am going to play around with some things
> with Win7 and linux just for laughs, but I am sure the notebook will
> ultimately end up being a linux only machine. In that case what would be
> the best file sharing system?
>
>
BobTheBull;

  1. Have you added Samba users with:

smbpasswd -a <username>

<username> must be a valid Linux user name, however, you may set a different
password from the login password.

  1. Samba can not violate nix permissions, thus the user accessing the share
    must have rights to access the files and directories as a nix user.

  2. Although Swerdna’s HowTo has not been updated for 12.1, not much has changed
    for the workgroup user. His tutorial should still be valid. This version has
    more information on permissions:
    http://opensuse.swerdna.org/susesambaserver.html

If you are still having problems accessing shares, please post the contents of
your /etc/samba/smb.conf.

P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green

6

So if you are used to using the Windows File sharing setup, then Samba works pretty much the same. If you use an all native Linux network, I would use NFS. However, Samba works just as well with Linux as it does with Windows. SInce I am just used to the Windows things and use a mix, I just use Samba. In my blog I give an example smb.conf file that works well with Windows and Samba clients. Now each PC needs to have its on Samba name, the workgroup name you use must be placed into the file for everyone and if you have a different subnet address from 192.168.0 at home, that needs to be changed as well, but except for those three changes, the config should work with all of your Linux clients. One other thing, only one Samba PC should be set as the Local (Browser) Master and that is the Linux machine that is turned on first, or the one that stays on most of the time. When you add (turn on or connect) a new PC to the network, it takes a few minutes for it to be brought into the SMB network and the Local Master should be started up first. You could always fetch the smb.conf file example, make your changes and then re-post it here to see if it looks OK to me if you want.

Thank You,

7

Thanks for the quick reply, venzkep. No I have not added Samba users as you show, but I figured it was something like that.
I did that and now can access the shared directories on the desktop. BTW, what is nix permission? I do have access to all the
shares as myusername; they are home and data partitions.

Now if I can set it up on the notebook (client?) in SuSE I will be well on the way. Hope Windows is not too much more difficult.

It’s late for me so going to bed. Will read up on both the tuts suggested and go back to this. Will post if I have any more problems.

Thanks to all for the very prompt and good help. One good reason it’s good to be a gecko. Go big Green.

8

On Wed January 4 2012 09:06 pm, BobTheBull wrote:

>
> Thanks for the quick reply, venzkep. No I have not added Samba users as
> you show, but I figured it was something like that.
> I did that and now can access the shared directories on the desktop.
> BTW, what is nix permission? I do have access to all the
> shares as myusername; they are home and data partitions.
>
<snip>
>
> Thanks to all for the very prompt and good help. One good reason it’s
> good to be a gecko. Go big Green.
>
BobTheBull;

Glad to see you have everything working now, enjoy your network.

“nix” is short for “Unix-like”, this includes Unix, Linux or Mac OS X. For a
description of the classic permissions see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_permissions

–
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green