Setting up an anonymous public Samba Share to be accessed via Windows 7 and XBMC
Solution 1
Happened to stumble across this thread on the Ubuntu forums, and thought it might help. It explains the steps that happen behind the scenes:
In Windows the client's username and password is automatically sent when it browses for shares - this is done without the user's knowledge. That forces Samba to deal with the sent credentials even though it's a guest share that requires no authentication.
When that username is passed Samba will search through it's password database for that user:
If there is no match to the username the client user is tagged a "Bad User" and converted ( mapped ) to the guest account which by default is "nobody".
If it finds a match to the username and there is a samba password that matches the one sent by the Windows client then the Windows user automatically gains access although not as an anonymous user which is why you needed to add "force user = nobody" to your share definition.
If it finds a match to the username but the samba password does not match exactly the password that's automatically sent by the Windows client then you will be prompted for a password - even for a guest share.
Try adding force user = nobody
to your share definition, and see if that does it.
Edit 02/20/2013:
Is testparm
returning an exit code of something other than zero? All the same, I would go ahead and give that area of the config a good, hard look. Also, I'm not sure how case-sensitive smb.conf is, but every example I see (for example) of map to guest = Bad User
has the B and U capitalized. Check-out the Samba man pages for the options you are using, and double-check everything.
Solution 2
This is how OpenElec is configured. Should do what you are asking for. (even if it is a year later...maybe it will help the next one) Just tweak the share settings as needed.
[global]
server string = YOURSERVERNAME
workgroup = WORKGROUP
netbios name = %h
security = share
guest account = root
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_RCVBUF=65536 SO_SNDBUF=65536
smb ports = 445
max protocol = SMB2
min receivefile size = 16384
deadtime = 30
os level = 20
mangled names = no
syslog only = yes
syslog = 2
name resolve order = lmhosts wins bcast host
preferred master = auto
domain master = auto
local master = yes
printcap name = /dev/null
load printers = no
browseable = yes
writeable = yes
printable = no
encrypt passwords = true
enable core files = no
passdb backend = smbpasswd
smb encrypt = disabled
use sendfile = yes
[share]
comment = Share
path = /share
available = yes
browsable = yes
writable = yes
public = yes
Solution 3
Since Google search brings us here and there is no clear answer, I summed it up.
Below are the conditions required to make sure SMB clients will not be prompting for the username and password when accessing your Samba server:
-
Add
guest account = <owner-of-your-shares>
under a[global]
section. It is important that the owner account of your shares has an access to them. If you do not do this, Samba will assume the guest account is anobody
user which unlikely has an access to the data in your share.Alternatively, you can specify
force user = <owner-of-your-share>
under your[shareXYZ]
block. -
Make sure your
[shareXYZ]
hasguest ok = yes
.Set
browsable = yes
but it is usually inherited from the[global]
and is set toyes
by default.
Then, probably security = user
should be also set (this is default when you do not have Active Directory set in your environment). Though, I am not sure whether this flag is required as I do not have AD in my environment.
Of course, if you want the nobody
user to work, then you can just chown -Rh 65534:65534 /yourshare
, after that you will be fine just with the single setting guest ok = yes
under your [shareXYZ]
.
Note that having set rwx
to others
(chmod o+rwx /yourshare
) did not let Samba with its nobody
user into the share. I have checked this with strace -f -e chdir,geteuid,getegid -p <pid-of-the-parent-smbd-process>
. Probably Samba just ignores the permissions set for the others
? Not sure.
Solution 4
This probably won't be the solution for everyone with such a problem, but my problem was due to the permissions of the parent directory that the shared directory was in. As soon as I enabled "Read by others" I was able to anonymously access the share. This caught me a bit by surprise as in windows servers the permissions of the parent directory don't matter for the shared directory.
So my path looks like this:
/data1/Downloads
I had to enable "read by others" on the data1
directory.
I didn't have to anything special in smb.conf
, my share entry looks like this...
[Downloads]
path = /data1/Downloads
browseable = yes
read only = yes
guest ok = yes
public = yes
Solution 5
It works for me in 30 seconds
Source:https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Setting_up_Samba_as_a_Standalone_Server
[global]
map to guest = Bad User
log file = /var/log/samba/%m
log level = 1
[guest]
# This share allows anonymous (guest) access
# without authentication!
path = /srv/samba/guest/
read only = no
guest ok = yes
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George Spake
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
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George Spake over 1 year
So I should start by saying that I did this successfully less than a week ago and I had no trouble but I have since reformatted and reconfigured my server and now I'm having the hardest time remembering how I did it.
Here's what I had before and what I am trying to accomplish again. I had a public samba share on Ubuntu server. Anyone on my network could access the share and it's contents simply by typing \Hostname. No password necessary. Users who were not on the share's workgroup had read access but users who were on the workgroup had read/write access. (Windows 7)
Now, if I try to connect to \Hostname I'm prompted for a username and password. If I enter the un pw I get full access but I shouldn't have to; my current settings are...
security = user map to guest = bad user [Shares] path = /home/shares available = yes read only = no browsable = yes public = yes writable = yes guest ok = yes
I'm pulling my hair out over this one. Any suggestions?
EDIT:
Ugh, this is giving me such a hard time. I'm so close.
Here's what I've got.
I can get to the share from Windows 7 by going to start and typing \Hostname\Sharename but I'm prompted for a username and password. I cant just leave it blank though because it will use my workgroup as the domain; so I enter \ for the username to clear it out and log in with a blank username and password. Great now I can access the files in the share.
Once I'm in, The workgroup configuration is working properly. If I'm on a computer with the the default WORKGROUP I can read and execute; a computer on my Home workgroup can read write and execute. So that's working.
The problem is, It shouldn't be asking for a password at all. It should be totally public to anyone on the network. I'm trying to share it with XBMC and it's not even showing up under smb in the file manager. I cant access it manually from XBMC either. I get a connection refused error.
Still pulling hair out over this. The worst part is the first time I did this about a week ago, I spent about 30 minutes on it and it worked perfectly. Now I've probably spent at least 4 hours and it's still not working.
Testparm: Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf rlimit_max: increasing rlimit_max (1024) to minimum Windows limit (16384) Processing section "[printers]" Processing section "[print$]" Processing section "[Shares]" Loaded services file OK. Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE Press enter to see a dump of your service definitions [global] workgroup = FELLOWSHIP server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu) map to guest = Bad User obey pam restrictions = Yes pam password change = Yes passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* . unix password sync = Yes syslog = 0 log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m max log size = 1000 socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192 dns proxy = No wins support = Yes usershare allow guests = Yes panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d idmap config * : backend = tdb [printers] comment = All Printers path = /var/spool/samba create mask = 0700 printable = Yes print ok = Yes browseable = No [print$] comment = Printer Drivers path = /var/lib/samba/printers [Shares] path = /home/shares read only = No guest ok = Yes
UPDATE: So, the share is now available across my network regardless of the work group. Any Windows user who connects to my network can see the NAS under Netowork and access it. The key was setting security to security = share. I know, it's deprecated, but it works and security = user and map to user = bad user wasn't working for me.
Anyway, now it seems that anyone who connects to the share get's unix global permissions for the directory, which is manageable, but I want users that are joined to the workgroup specified in smb.conf to get unix group permissions.
This way, I can set the directory to 775 and I will be able to write because I am joined to the workgroup but other users can only read and execute.
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Aaron about 11 yearsYou should be able to map workgroup users to get specific permissions with a username map file: samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/smb.conf.5.html#USERNAMEMAP
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George Spake about 11 yearsHey Bryce, Thanks for answering. I've managed to make a little progress since my original question but I'm still essentially having the same issue. I've managed to get my share (I'm calling it Shares) configured so that anyone on the workgroup, defined in the global seettings in smb.conf, can get right to it - No password necessary. Continuing in next comment...
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George Spake about 11 yearsHere are the settings for the share:
[Shares] path = /home/shares browsable = yes available = yes read only = no public = yes writable = yes guest ok = yes
If I addforce user = nobody
it breaks and I can't access the share at all. Here's where it get's weird though; when I run testparm it dumps[Shares] path = /home/shares read only = no guest ok = yes
So for some reason it's like it isn't seeing the public, writeable, available and browseable definitions. Could this be an indicator of where the problem is. -
Aaron about 11 years@GeorgeSpake edit made...
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davidmdem over 9 yearsThank you for this addition! I've been struggling to get a public share working with Windows 8.1 these settings did the trick.
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DanielSmedegaardBuus over 9 yearsURGH! "guest account = root". This means guest accounts are mapped to root, i.e. have unrestricted permissions to do anything. BE VERY CAREFUL! DRAGONS AHEAD!
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Antony over 7 yearsRecent samba update
4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.14.04.3
on Ubuntu 14.04 broke my public share,force user = nobody
is just the fix I needed to bring public share back -
Dany almost 3 yearsThank you for explanation about
nobody
! I've also struggled withchmod o+rwx
being unaware ofnobody
by default -
Admin almost 2 yearsguest account = <username> solved my problem! Thanks a lot!