Setting up Simple Samba File Shares

Sometimes, you just want to share files with colleagues quickly without worrying about permissions. In this tutorial, I go over the process of creating shares for your home or small business network that are wide-open and writable for all. This isn't for sharing protected or confidential files, but will get you up and running with a shared folder or two that's accessible by all.
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[@martingjsmith]

As a real Linux newbie, I learnt a lot from this video whilst experimenting with a Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu Server. Time to start watching the rest of your Linux videos in 2024. Thank you and a Happy New Year.

[@wellbi]

For those who struggle to see the Samba server in Windows. Windows doesn't support NetBIOS discovery anymore and Samba out-of-the-box relies on that. You have to install wsdd on the machine running Samba (For Debian-based distros "apt install wsdd"), after that, the files/folders set up in Samba will be discoverable by the Windows machine.

[@MarthaBlank-fb6qx]

Might that work for getting a Debian 12 client to see Ubuntu Server 22.04? Failed to retrieve share file list from server or directory. Newbie and been over everything numerous times.

[@saintsandsin3885]

OMG, hours trying to figure this out and this worked. Thank you so much!

[@dinnerandashow]

Wow ! Not just spitting out instructions but also a brief explanation of the instruction. A foreign concept to most people that believe they are making tutorial videos.

[@celo32390]

I’ve been scouring KZbin for a video like this, I’ve watched countless videos only to find myself with errors or not working properly. FINALLY YOUR VIDEO SO DETAILED DOESNT SKIP A BEAT. Thank you 🙏

[@yiannisspanos694]

Great video. Are you planning to make a video for "not so simple" file shares too?

[@BrianThomas]

I've seen a few of these and this one ranks up there. Thanks for the help. I'd love to see a more advance video on Samba sharing if you have the time to put something together for us.

[@michaelscofield4524]

I know this video is 2 years old but your videos just rock man. I followed your Arch install along some years ago and am not disappointed with this one either. Superb and concise.

[@Celluarexpress]

Worked for me thanks!

[@markh2827]

Gday Jay, your video has to one of the easiest ones to understand and follow with regards to Samba setups. It got me back up and running in no time. Also slowly going through your Linux tutorials, which has helped with mounting drives and understanding permissions. Cheers

[@sherakhela4044]

Thanks Jay for this great tutorial. I set up my very first samba server today with your help. The mistake I made in typo, used shares instead of share in config file. It took me little time to figure it out. Now I can see content on my other device. Thanks a lot

[@LK-pc4sq]

I think that is my mistake let me see why its not working

[@BinayakKundu]

Thanks Jay! Please make a video on samba sever with user name and password.

[@metalxthrashingxmad1]

Thank you for making this video. I'm a newer Linux user, and haven't been able to find a way to successfully make Samba function, until now!

[@markward4284]

Thanks so much, I've been trying to do this exact thing for the last week and the other videos or web pages with instructions I found never worked for me, this did first time, thanks again. I'm subscribing and see what else I can learn.

[@asaskald]

Thank you, Jay! This video pushed me to buy your Ubuntu Server book. Your channel is one of my favorites.

[@user-sj2uj4pz8n]

Thanks man I can't tell you how much searching I did to get this to work before coming across your video, now it's working perfectly.

[@binarytrekker]

I followed this tutorial at least 10 times and every time I got access tonight or something different. I finally just used putty to SSH into the VM, and copied and paste everything from your tutorial and it worked

[@hitesh6762]

Understood the concept very clearly, thanks for the detailed and informative explanation, please keep posting such linux videos, these are very helpful and informative

[@jtreg]

this actually works. Not a given in KZbin. Clear and concise. Subscribed, thanks man.

[@Yosip_777]

I had to allow samba through my Ubuntu server's firewall to see it on my Windows 10 machine. The command I used: sudo ufw allow samba

[@jeremychick619]

Thanks friend.

[@zameerpashablr]

I have watched at least 20 times ...Love to learn from you. At last did experiment creating samba server.

[@johnh10000]

Thank you sir I copied Open Meadia Vault config, some times it works some times it don't. Exactly follow your tutorial, and smb works every time, even with an ntfs share. Great stuff

For use in a demo for my master's degree on big data I'll use some Samba shares, and even I have used Samba before (and have the Carter, Ts & Eckstein "Using Samba" book), this was the fastest way to create public shares that I found that works. THANKS, MAN, THANKS

[@_axlandrade]

Hey man, THANKS ! U literally just saved my life with this tutorial ! Keep up with the great job !

[@tomashley9246]

If it's not working for Windows10 try this: . Click and open the Search Bar in Windows 10 Type Windows Features in the search bar Double Click Turn Windows Features off and On 2. Scroll down to SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support 3. Check the box net to SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support and all other child boxes will auto populate After you do this you'll have to reboot. For more clarity try searching "SMB win10 features" to learn how to enable it more in-depth.

[@Lanzetsu]

This is one of the best videos about SAMBA I ever watched, thanks a lot!

[@noweare1]

samba is kind of complicated but you made it much easier to understand and implement, thanks.

[@user-rc2ob2uo6p]

First time I got a samba server working reliably. Thanks Jay

[@calvinlondt3037]

I don't know if it's an older version of samba on the video but the service is 'smb' not 'smbd', for those who didn't get this working by copying exactly from this video.

[@lesphillips9741]

Thank you very much! Awesome video. Had to watch it twice, but learned so much. Where can I go to get the links for the data?

[@Pananananananananify]

Great explanation and example. Very straightforward

[@ourkid2000]

Anyone know how to actually put some files in the Protected Files location? No matter what user I'm logged in as, I get permission denied.

[@silverthunderbird]

Windows 10 users, pay attention to the last few minutes of the video. If you don't see the shares in Windows file explorer, you need to enter your Linux box's IP address in the file explorer search bar. Secondly, there are steps that are different and/or missing from the Wiki page for this video. Otherwise, excellent video.

[@michaelbrauner]

Ok... and where do I ffind this IP address?

[@AllAbout.Digital]

@@michaelbraunermost of the time it’ll be your host servers IP. so if you type “ip a” on your linux machine, just harvest the interface IP you are currently using and that’ll be your smb server ip

[@bingchilling495]

thank you very much I was confused

[@Ballistichydrant]

Thanks so much for this. Not sure why I was directed by Google to tens of sites with completely inaccurate or outdated instructions before I found you. There is so much incorrect information about this topic. Also not sure why this process is so much more involved than it used to be. Back in 2008 I used to build samba office servers and the process of setting up shares was much more straight forward. It was a long time ago and I stopped using Linux in 2010, but as I recall it was just install SMB samba and system-config-samba and then edit samba.conf and add the user to samba group. Then you were done. What happened? Once again thanks so much for the very detailed instructions. Clear voice and instructions. Really helpful.

[@jwatkins320]

Worked first try. Thank you so much

[@quentinb9692]

Thanks, works awesomely. Other guides wasted my time trying to figure it out.

[@pieinside2345]

great tutorial. works great with next to no modification. made this a lot easier than it needed to be and I learned some things as well :)

[@danp1975]

Thank you for the excellent tutorial! I've followed it and it works perfectly for the local drive however I'm having no luck with a USB external drive share.

[@onlyeyeno]

Great video as always, though it leaves me curious as to how this differs from making a "Local Network Share" using the "file explorer" ?? What, if anything, is different ?? Best regards.

[@peterlaidlaw8655]

Thanks much. Clearly said, best vid on the topic!; works with Odroid XU4 linux 20 and Win10 ver 1909. Sonos users should to add the line "ntlm auth = yes" in the [global] to make the share visible. Also for Linux 20 add server min protocol = NT1 ... to make it work.

[@Jose-tw9bl]

Thank you for the video! very clear and detailed explanation

[@RCTurbine]

Very helpful, useful video - Thanks so much for sharing

[@keonbillings5437]

I landed on this page because I want to setup a file share in my lab that my students can use to upload their work files too large for the school servers. Honestly, this is the clearest explanation to Samba shares I've ever seen. There are a lot of garbage videos claiming tutorial status but none comes close. That said, I find Samba and Linux tedious and unnecessarily difficult for such a simple task of sharing a folder. I cannot believe that after all these years, Linux still don't have a decent native file share option. This is one of the many reasons why Windows and Mac will always remain superior to Linux. It only took a few clicks of the mouse in Windows and I had a share folder my kids could use. Yes, I know about the 20 user concurrent connection limit, but I'd rather deal with that than learn a new language just to create a simple share. Thanks for the video. I've shared it with my students, so if one of them wants to go this route.

[@EnFuego79]

" I cannot believe that after all these years, Linux still don't have a decent native file share option." On most modern linux distros, like Mint, you can just right click on the folder you want to share and select "sharing options" not sure how you missed this... did you even try new distros before making assertions like this?

[@TheAlexander775]

GREAT TUTORIAL! I keep coming back to this every time I break my server :P One error I wanted to mention if other get it is not being to chown (change owner) of the share folder, this happened to me and apparently it's caused by the format of the drive itself, in this case it was Vfat. So if you're getting this error, it might be worth to check out.

[@leighhorton2806]

This was the video I have been waiting for. I use arch and it has been a challenge to get samba share with a mycloud 4tb storage. Very well done. I can share all content.

[@scottroth6273]

Awesome - you made it so easy! Thanks.

[@cgsquash]

very clear explanation works perfectly

[@rebeljt]

Awesome video! Helped me a ton!

[@michaelb7087]

This helped allot. Thanks for the step by step

[@NerdonWheels]

Fantastic guide. Thank you!

[@isellcuddlesessions66]

Really great video. Thanks a bunch.

[@TRAMETOOLS]

Great class. Thanks!!!

[@AbarSimorgh]

Thank you for the video. Can an existing folder be shared the same way as in the video and just change the group and owner to that existing folder?

[@nathanbishop4197]

fantastic walk through. thank you

[@ForrestRhoads]

Very good video. I use sshfs for most everything now though, whether home network or remote access to it.

[@IanaL]

It works!!! Thank you very much.

[@YannMetalhead]

Very good guide, thank you!

[@Notyourbusinesschap]

Thank you! Everything works great!

[@Arelius.D]

There is basically no one else who is as great as you as a teacher so your guidance are much appreciated! Having said that, is there any chance these videos could come in newer versions so the content could reflect the latest version of these services?

[@obyrnedd]

Absolutely outstanding work! CompTIA Linux+ is on my wishlist. I might have to sit down and watch every video you've ever made. Thank you.

[@eel64]

Thank you. You make Samba easy.

[@zmgkbao5252]

you don't know how much time you saved me 😭 Thankyou

[@francisguchie1973]

I like this because this makes it much easier to change it into a more complex setup after one succeeds in getting it to work. Thank you so much (Keeping it Simple and Stupid on the first steps )

[@jaybienick4926]

VERY GOOD tutorial, thank's!

[@Farang_Lifestyles]

Excellent video,,, clear precise with a link to a created wiki... very professional touch.... earned my sub-channel

[@tigerbalm666]

Been using VCL for my network streaming. Hope this is better.

[@Moses_coder]

Great. Learnt a lot thank you.

[@gordian99]

This was very helpful.

[@tokoiaoben3842]

I have setup samba share and one of the option is "force directory mode = 2770". All the shares are working perfect . You set value the to 0770 what is the difference. ?

[@CesarPeron]

I need users to be able to add but not modify the current files, except for what they have added. In Windows what I did was give full control to the Creator Owner group, what should I change in the .config? thanks for the video

[@jessemurdock2406]

Yes, absolutely! Thank you!

[@ironwolf3699]

Thank you! I wanted a way to locally backup my steam games and re download them faster when I need them.

[@redstonemason]

Still works well on Debian 11 (Bullseye) in late 2021. My physical disk is a ZFS Mirrored Pool.

[@countrygent36]

outstanding explanation, thank you.

[@chrisoddshoes]

Thank you, that helped a lot. Worked 1st time.

[@tokoiaoben3842]

Thank you very much.can do a video on Samba active directory ?

[@keithmiller9665]

Very useful, thank you 😊

[@jforbush]

thank you very much! very helpful!

[@ismailhanadi3105]

thank you its helped me a lot.

[@bpurgett100]

I did set this up, and it works just fine for what I do, does anyone know how to add an extra HDD to your SAMBA server? I can not find a good tutorial on how to make your shares as big as you want. Thanks.

[@tonyfreehauf4463]

great job - very clear & understandable - thank you - oldtony

[@gligoratanasovski3329]

Great video, had to say thanks!

[@bassiedeclown5792]

Hi Jay, I have a few questions. I cannot find the file sharing option in POP_OS. Normally like in Mint it's in the files submenu or next to the properties of a folder. Any ideas? Secondly I would be interested in a video on what is the best compatible linux printer. My Dell Colour laserprinter can only function with the ia32.libs installed but I can not get them on the new distros. Not even on Manjaro. At least I cannot. So Iḿ thinking of buying a new colour laser printer in the budget class, or maybe an inktjet. Hope you can help or make a video? thnx! Bas

[@MaxWeir]

Does this work for the raspberry pi as wanting to setup a Plex server and use samba to access and transfer files to an external USB drive

[@alfonsenasayao9822]

Hi Jay please make a video on samba share about vfs objs= recycle and how to access on windows the recycle-bin folder. Thanks a lot. Greetings from Philippines.

[@NickRO1989]

Anyone know how to do this but to require a username and password to access share? I have a NAS with a wide open share but want to make it a little more secure

[@ecuasteelo]

Great video. Well done.

[@sotesz]

(Just in case it wasn't intentional and you would want to correct it: the "Back up Samba config file" section's command seems incomplete on the wiki.)

[@mason8714]

was just about to make a comment about that

[@HashedBahooz]

Hey great tutorials! I have proxmox thank to you! I have a question, can you do a tutorial of smb not from scratch?

[@gfmoore]

Brilliant, life saver. I did have a problem seeing the server and then bam suddely it all appeared - is there a propogation delay, I wouldn't have thought so. Anyway next step...

[@jusohjate6796]

Thank you Mr. Jay.

[@chukwuuchethankgod1591]

What is the prerequisite to this. Must the computers be connected first in any form of network?

[@damianjames8148]

This is great. Now i can access my backup files from my proxmox server to save them in my cloud so i have multiple copies. Thanks

[@fmj_556]

Is it possible to mount the shared folder on another linux server in the terminal?

[@Dms_Kernel]

Everything up to "connection to server "worked.But after that whichsoever way i tried i Couldn't connect to the server using my Ip in linux.Please help me.

[@JohirulIslam-lm2vz]

Excellent ... Thanks a lot!

[@v8racerman]

Hi Jay, I could not get this to work on an Ubuntu server server running within a Proxmox container (even with a privileged container), although it did work when I tried it on a stand-alone desktop running Linux Mint. Your Linux tutorials are the best on KZbin. As a thank-you, I will buy your Ubuntu Server Book! Thanks Jay!

[@senadgalijasevic8568]

Is this why I cant get this nonsense to work? Im running it in VirtualBox just to test it and no matter what I do nothing works.

[@v8racerman]

Have a look at this video - he demonstrates the process with VirtualBox, like you are using. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXLIp2SKl7SbhLs

[@jaredlara2850]

Jay you are my hero, keep it up dude 👌👌

[@originaldanman]

Did everything the way you said exactly the way you explained it, double checking everything, all the commands syntax, etc... are exactly like you have her, but still not working. One problem I had was that when I did some of the commands I had to add the full directory for it to work. However when I checked the status, it said "system running" but gave me an error "ignoring unknown error "force directory mask". Still can't see find it from Windows, nor can I see any folders from my shares folder

[@aminesbai926]

Hello! I know I am really late but did you find a solution? I searched everywhere and still can't solve this problem.

[@himanshu-zu9li]

Sir i am new to this if suppose i wanted to add some files from my linus desktop to protected files how can i add do i have to change to writeble from server or other so i get access to it?

[@robbiestonham4018]

Earned a new sub. Great video!

[@MonirulIslam-fc5lv]

thanks for helping us.