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Is anybody else out there having issues with Ubuntu 10.10 and reading samba shares? I have a file server running Ubuntu 10.10 server edition (running webmin)and it works beautifully for sharing files with all my windows machines in my house. Permissions/Access works without any problem what so ever on every windows machine. Then there is my Ubuntu 10.10 based laptop. I really like everything I can do with Ubuntu and this is the last major step to getting everything to work.

I can go to try and access the shares and it lets me see (the shares folders but not inside) them but whenever I type in my password and username the screen just keeps repeating itself and does not allow me to access the shares. I tried changing the samba password and nothing seems to get it to work. I know people are having issues with this and nautilus is definitely broken. I would use a different file manager but I dropbox needs nautilus. I tried some basic workarounds on the web like the samba password but I still can't seem to get it to work.

Anybody have any workarounds or suggestions for this? Either on the server or on the desktop.

Is it dumb to have a NFS or CIFS server in addition to a samba server because it is now twice as hard to maintain?

Thanks for the help.

Do you have a firewall enabled on the client? If so try disabling it and see if that helps.

I know you indicated that you didn't want to set up an NFS export in addition to Samba one, but there's another reason you may wish to do so anyway: file and folder permissions between Linux clients and servers work more smoothly across an NFS share. This is because NFS is designed with UNIX-style access permissions in mind, whereas the Samba protocol is designed for Windows-style access permissions.

Interesting issue you hit there though; I may poke at it a bit tonight when I get home.

just brew it! wrote:

Do you have a firewall enabled on the client? If so try disabling it and see if that helps.

I believe I tried it. I have tried so many fixes over the past week or so it has become hard to keep track.

just brew it! wrote:

I know you indicated that you didn't want to set up an NFS export in addition to Samba one, but there's another reason you may wish to do so anyway: file and folder permissions between Linux clients and servers work more smoothly across an NFS share. This is because NFS is designed with UNIX-style access permissions in mind, whereas the Samba protocol is designed for Windows-style access permissions.

Okay. I will look into doing this. I already have my server designed to sync windows and unix users so I don't think it would be to hard to implement.

just brew it! wrote:

Interesting issue you hit there though; I may poke at it a bit tonight when I get home.

I would definitely love to know what you find. Other fixes have been to mount /~gvfts/ in order to share the samba shares but I guess that was broken in 10.10.

This is a known problem.

It appears to be something about the data structure returned by cifs and a 32 bit vs 64 bit word. or something. I have seen it over the last year or so and have found bug reports for several apps related to it - see https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/304345

I experience the problem with 32 bit Ubuntu but not 64 bit when using programs that depend upon the standard file chooser.

If you use the Nautilus->Places->Network to find the share and then open the app from there, it works. That mounts the share under ~/.gvfs/ using fuse in the home directory.

I see Maverick still has the problem. Why it hasn't been fixed, I don't know.

Axeman:

Yes. I tried configuring the client version of samba. No luck what so ever. Bryani pretty much nailed it on the spot where it just an issue with nautilus and Maverick because thats what I found when I was researching it. I hope they fix it as soon but I am not holding my breath. I just can't believe that this issue is still around. I guess I am just going to have to learning NFS in the mean time.

thanks for the tip about smbnetfs - I will have to give that one a shot here.

From what I can tell, the problem isn't the samba project but rather the gnome project.

I have been using autofs to manage the mounts and using smb to get name based rather than gid/uid based security. But then there's the multiple users on one machine complicating things. And later autofs versions need to have the mount points specifically set to a particular user in order to allow access. (and it also appears that autofs has messed up its smb mount script, too)

Then there's Libre Office (ne OOo) with its need for 'nobrl' so it doesn't get hung up on its document locking.

What really gets me is what this example shows - niggling persistent bugs that are difficult to pin down are on one side and, on the other, there is a plethora of options, workarounds, and different ways to do things in such a cloud that it gets difficult to find the one you need.

And now I see the RT ethernet bug has reared its ugly head again on one of my machines. It does this with the October Ubuntu releases but not the April ones, it seems. That puzzles me.

Nothing like good intellectual stimulation to keep the mind in shape, I guess.

I tried giving smbnetfs a try with gigolo but couldn't seem to get it to work.

@Axeman - Do you know of any tutorial on how to use this? I found some online but they were mostly crap or five years old and don't really apply anymore.

@bryanl - That is good to know about LibreOffice. I was going to install it instead of open office but it is good to know there are a few issues to work around.

I guess we just got to hold out and wait until GNOME 3 comes out and hopefully it fixes all these bugs.

I have not had time to really look into your specific issue, but another potential workaround would be to mount the shares explicitly (as a remote filesystem of type "cifs") instead of trying to browse the network with nautilus. At work this is how we typically access Windows-style shares (on both Windows and Linux based servers) from Linux desktops.

I had a variety of issues relating to shares and permissions. I guess you could call my solution a workaround, but it fixed all of my share errors.
gksudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Add

force user = mitch (Replace mitch with your user name)
usershare owner only = false

to the global section.
Fixed my problem. As I said it's a workaround. I suppose it's possible this solution could lead to security issues, but being a relative noob I'm not sure about that.

Hello Mitch you are a life saver! Your's is the only solution I could get to work for windows 7 home premium to connect to Ubuntu 10.10 shares! Did you find out about security issues? Do you know how to add a password to the smbconf file for windows users?