My smb.conf

This is about the 5th time I had to redo our smb.conf for our file server in the hallway. I’m not very good at making backups of that machine when we upgrade the hardware or software, and there really is no reason to except for this one file. Well I think I’ve finally mastered it, and I want to put it in a location where I’ll be able to find it for future resources.

[global]
   workgroup = MSHOME
   server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
   dns proxy = no
   log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
   max log size = 1000
   syslog = 0
   panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
   encrypt passwords = true
   passdb backend = tdbsam
   obey pam restrictions = yes
   invalid users = root
   printcap name = /dev/null
   map to guest = Bad User

[homes]
   browseable = no
   valid users = %S
   read only = no
   create mask = 0664
   directory mask = 0775

[Programs]
   path = /home2/Programs
   guest ok = yes
   read only = yes
   force group = +trigo
   write list = @trigo
   create mask = 0664
   directory mask = 0775

We have more shares but from the Programs share I know I’ll be able to figure out the rest and hopefully you can figure it out too.

A quick run down:

• printcap name = /dev/null — We don’t care about printer settings and it seems the logs are flooded with messages about printers if this line isn’t there
• map to guest = Bad User — This allows guest users even though the security setting is set to user (by default)
• [homes] — this is setup so that only the proper user can access their share via smb.
• [Programs] — guest ok must be specified for the guest account to access the folder. read only ensures that guest accounts cannot write. The force group option with the plus (+) indicates that if the user belongs to the group trigo then any file/folder created will have that group specified as its owner. The option write list when used with the at (@) sign indicates that any members of the trigo group has write permission to the share. Finally the masks ensure that the group has proper edit/delete privileges to files/folders created through smb.

This setup is ideal since the three of us wish to have read/write access to our files while only granting others read access.

Completely separately from my very limited experimentation it seems NFS is at least five times faster, transferring a single large file (such as an Ubuntu ISO) than is SMB. The only problem is it is basically infinitely less secure than SMB because it doesn’t require any form of authentication. This just poses the question of which is more important, speed or security?