Help Desk Screeds

Basic Samba Setup On Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

I prefer GNOME, but others prefer KDE, which for Ubuntu means using Kubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex. Since I’ve written posts explaining how to install Samba on Ubuntu 8.10 and 8.04, it seems only fair to do a post on Samba on Kubuntu.

Make sure to install all available updates for Kubuntu 8.10 before installing Samba, since the updates may contain fixes for the Samba packages. Once that is done, go to a Terminal prompt and type the following command:

sudo apt-get install samba

Follow the default prompts, and Samba will be installed on your system. Once it is installed, you’ll need to create a Samba password for yourself:

sudo smbpasswd -a USERNAME

(USERNAME, of course, is a placeholder for your actual username.)

Make sure to type a suitably strong password. Once the password is created, you’ll then need to edit the /etc/samba/smb.conf file, which is the configuration file for Samba. Create a folder called ‘test’ in your home folder; we’ll use that for our test shared folder:

mkdir /home/USERNAME/test

Next, make a backup copy of smb.conf to your home folder, in case of an editing error:

sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf ~

Now use your text editor of choice to edit smb.conf. In our example, we’ll use kate, KDE’s text editor, but you can just as easily use vi or emacs:

sudo kate /etc/samba/smb.conf

Once smb.conf has loaded, add this to the very end of the file:

[test]
path = /home/USERNAME/test
available = yes
valid users = USERNAME
read only = no
browsable = yes
public = yes
writable = yes

(Note that there are no spaces between the lines, and there should be a single space before and after the equal signs.)

This will share the test folder in your home directory, and gives your account and your account alone permission to read and write to the folder. Once you’ve entered the changes, save smb.conf, exit your text editor, and restart Samba:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Once Samba has restarted, use the testparm command to make sure your smb.conf file doesn’t contain any syntax errors:

testparm

If you pass the testparm command, Samba should be working; try accessing the shared folder from another computer on your subnet.

-JM

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