Setup Samba on Ubuntu

Here is a quick guide to setting up a Samba share on Ubuntu Linux.

Install the package

sudo apt-get install samba smbfs

Edit smb.conf
Open the samba configuration file in your favourite editor, change security to user and add a username map.

sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

# "security = user" is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account
# in this server for every user accessing the server. See
# /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/ServerType.html
# in the samba-doc package for details.
security = user
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers

Create a samba user

sudo smbpasswd -a fahd

Add the new user to the smbusers file
The format is "unix username" = "samba username".

sudo vi /etc/samba/smbusers

fahd = fahd

Share home directory
Make the following changes to smb.conf in order to share your home directory over samba and make it writable.

sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

#======================= Share Definitions =======================

# Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit)
# to enable the default home directory shares.  This will share each
# user's home directory as \\server\username
[homes]
   comment = Home Directories
   browseable = no

# By default, the home directories are exported read-only. Change the
# next parameter to 'no' if you want to be able to write to them.
   read only = no

# By default, \\server\username shares can be connected to by anyone
# with access to the samba server.  Un-comment the following parameter
# to make sure that only "username" can connect to \\server\username
# This might need tweaking when using external authentication schemes
   valid users = %S

Connecting to the samba
Now you should be able to map a drive on windows using the following share format: \\ubuntumachine\username. The first time you will be prompted for a username and password.

Restarting samba

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart