Setting Up A Samba Server On CentOS

3 minute read

Description:

Follow these steps to setup a Samba server on CentOS 7. You can learn about samba here. In this example, we are sharing a directory called “/homeShare” from our CentOS VM.

To Resolve:

  1. Open a terminal => type:

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    # Install software needed
sudo yum install -y samba samba-commons cups-libs policycoreutils-shell samba-client

# Create a group for smb users
sudo groupadd family
sudo chgrp -R family /homeShare
sudo chmod -R 770 /homeShare

# Change selinux settings
sudo chcon -R -t samba_share_t /homeShare/
sudo semanage fcontext -a -t samba_share_t /homeShare/
sudo setsebool -P samba_enable_home_dirs on

# Create a user for smb purposes. This is the user that will access the share from other comptuers.
sudo useradd smb
sudo usermod -G family smb
sudo smbpasswd -a smb
<typePassword>

# Make sure to make any local users part of the group if you want them to have access to the share
sudo usermod -G family gerry
sudo usermod -G family root

# One thing that took me over an hour to figure out is you have log out and back in for it to take effect!!

# Now we modify the config
cd /etc/samba/
sudo cp -p smb.conf smb.conf.orig
sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

# Change workgroup to your Windows workgroup name. Add the hosts interfaces that will use the server and then the networks on those NICs. 
# Then allow anything on whatever subnets you want to limit them to:

Workgroup = windows workgroup
interfaces = lo enp0s3 192.168.0.0/24
hosts allow = 127. 192.168.0.

# Now scroll down to your share name
[homeShare]
comment = shared-directory
path = /homeShare
public = no
valid users = smb, @family
writable = yes
browseable = yes
create mask = 0765

# Save and exit

# Now we need to make sure the following services are running:
sudo vi /etc/services

# Look for and add if missing (shouldn't be, but I don't set these up all the time so some may be):
netbios-ns    137/tcp    # netbios name service
netbios-ns    137/udp    # netbios name service
netbios-dgm    138/tcp    # netbios datagram service
netbios-dgm    138/udp    # netbios datagram service
netbios-ssn    139/udp    # netbios session service
netbios-ssn    139/udp    # netbios session service

# Now just start the services and enable them for startup
sudo systemctl start smb.service
sudo systemctl start nmb.service
sudo systemctl enable smb.service
sudo systemctl enable nmb.service

# Add firewall rules
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-rich-rule='rule family="ipv4" source address="192.168.0.0/24" service name="samba" log prefix="samba" level="info" limit value="1/m" accept'
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

  2. To access from Windows:

    • Run:
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    \\LinuxServerHostname\ShareName

    • Enter prompts for the username and password, should be “smb/whatever you set”

    • To map the Samba server share as a network drive either create it through My Computer manually, or right click on the share and select “map network drive”.

  3. To access from Linux (smbclient must be installed on your system, if it isn’t then install it.)

    • Open terminal => type:
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    smbclient -L \\192.168.56.102 -U test

    • The IP address is that of the Samba server and the “test” is the user account. It will prompt for a password after running that command.

    • To mount it, just type:

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    mount -t cifs //192.168.56.102/sharedrepo -o username=test /mnt/
# Enter password

    • This maps the same Samba share with the same user to the “/mnt/” directory.

    • In some distro’s you can browse Samba shares just by opening their file explorers and typing “smb://” in the address bar.

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