Samba Sharing Files and Folders vs Thunar?

Samba Sharing Files and Folders vs Thunar? - Printable Version

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Samba Sharing Files and Folders vs Thunar? - JimmyJim - 05-05-2025

Looking for guidance.

I have 2 linux lite 7.4 systems and I want to set up a shared folder -- anonymous no logins no passwords no security. Smb.conf is barebones and things work as far as this goes. Thunar grants access on the local system. And somehow I expect that from remote systems as well.

On the remote system, I access the share with Thunar and a popup says Authentication Required and I select Anonymous and the popup goes away and then nothing -- The popup goes away without leaving a clue -- no access, no error message and most importantly no access.

Can anyone help me on this path?

Thanks

RE: Samba Sharing Files and Folders vs Thunar? - stevef - 05-06-2025

Try from the CLI to see if any error messages get thrown.

On the client machine open a terminal and use this command to try anonymous login to the server.
Replace serveripaddress and sharename with your specifics.

Code:
sudo smbclient //serveripaddress/sharename/ -U %

RE: Samba Sharing Files and Folders vs Thunar? - JimmyJim - 05-06-2025

Thanks for that. I always thought CLI meant clear interrupt flag Smile

And I confess to being not conversant in linux.

Using //192.168.1.104/guest/ I get the error NT_STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_NAME.
If I omit guest there's no response, just back to the command prompt.

Here is my minimalist server side smb.conf...

[global]
map to guest = Bad User
log file = /var/log/samba/%m
log level = 1
server role = standalone server

[guest]
# This share allows anonymous (guest) access
# without authentication!
path = /home/%U/linux_share
read only = no
guest ok = yes
guest only = yes

Thanks so for helping.

RE: Samba Sharing Files and Folders vs Thunar? - stevef - 05-07-2025

How did you set permissions on your linux_share directory ?

The samba set up on my test machine follows the Linux Lite Manual at
https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/network.html#lite-shares
which uses names and passwords.

My starting point is therefore different to you.
I think unsecured access is a bad idea, but I have been able to get it working as an exercise.

Using a terminal session in the home directory of the server, created a new directory in the home folder called 'temptest'

Code:
mkdir temptest

Open up the permissions on the folder for all

Code:
chmod a=rwx temptest

Check anyone can access temptest

Code:
ls -l

Look for 'drwxrwxrwx' in the permission list for the new directory.

Could have used Thunar for the above.

Edit the existing smb.conf file - I used the 'Lite Network Shares' because it includes some syntax checking and restarts smb when done, but manually editing the file is possible. I left the existing set up well alone and just added the following for the easy access share at the bottom of the file.

Code:
#======== Added 2025-05-07 for temporary test ========

[Anonymous]

path = /home/%U/temptest

browseable = yes

writable = yes

guest ok = yes

read only =no

Having made the change, save and exit then allow Lite Network Shares to restart services.
If you are editing manually, you need to restart smbd manually to allow the new config to be read.

Having done that, the temptest directory on the server was accessible (as a share called 'anonymous') from another machine without credentials using either Thunar or CLI.

One oddity was that using Thunar -> right click -> create document didn't work, but other methods worked so I guess that's a Thunar wrinkle. May be the problems you had with Thunar seeing your share are along the same lines ?

Samba can refuse to work for lots of reasons. As your starting point is different, you may need some tweaking for this to work for you, but it can work as you want.

RE: Samba Sharing Files and Folders vs Thunar? - JimmyJim - 05-10-2025

stevef thanks again.

Got it working pretty well and learning more by the day.

Permissions seem to be a stumbling block. If I create the shared folder at the bottom of the hierarchy as /share and set the permissions to r/w works well. If the share is within the /home/jim/share not so good. Seems all the ancestor folders need to be r/w?

I find that Thunar running as administrator works equally as well as chmod. I also observed Thunar's trouble creating an empty folder. I find that a useful trick, like leaving trail of bread crumbs when observing the folder remotely.

I managed to create a smb.conf with 2 shares -- one password protected the other anonymous named respectively needLogin and wideOpen. Curious differences in behaviour between W10 explorer and Thunar...

Using Thunar, a dlg pops up asking for credentials -- anonymous works for wideOpen as one would hope and for needLogin I need the password.

W10, requires login credentials just to get past the server name to see the two shares. Changing the password on the server and restarting smbd does not affect the connection once made. I feel like a tester in the QA lab chasing irreproducible results.

Thanks again for getting me headed in the right direction. I have lernt that Google or even Perplexity can be dangerous. A simple sounding search may come up answers that are incomplete, obsolete, not-applicable or just plain wrong.

Oh one last question. In windows 'C:\' is called the root, and root has a whole different meaning here I know. But is there a name for files at that level of '/'?

RE: Samba Sharing Files and Folders vs Thunar? - stevef - 05-11-2025

Glad you've got it working.

Samba has to be flexible to deal with the problems involved in transferring files between systems. Flexibility requires complexity (lots of options) which in turn means plenty of opportunity to get it wrong. As you've found, there's lots of information out there. Filtering out what is relevant to achieve a specific requirement is not easy.

Quote:Oh one last question. In windows 'C:\' is called the root, and root has a whole different meaning here I know. But is there a name for files at that level of '/'?

In Linux file systems, the slash symbol

Code:
/

denotes the top-most directory in the hierarchy. Strictly speaking this directory has no name but it is 'the root directory'.
I've not aware of a specific collective name for the items in the root directory.

By 'root has a whole different meaning here' I guess you are referring to the Linux superuser account which can be known as root. As a user, root will have a home directory (actually called root) in the (nameless) root directory.