Connecting to Samba from outside the LAN with Windows XP

joelkillspeople · 02-16-2007, 09:51 AM

Hey, guys. I have set up a Samba server using Debian 4.0 with linux kernel 2.6.

Inside the network, I am able to connect to it fine, and everything works great. I have created the users in smbpasswd and added the users to the various workgroups to make sure that everyone has proper permissions to view everything they need to.

This server has an external IP, and can be pinged from my home computer, as well as SSH'ed in to. Unfortunately, when trying to access the samba share from windows XP by just typing the IP in windows explorer (I.E. \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx), the process times out with an ok box:

"Windows cannot find '\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'. Check the spelling and try again, or try searching for the irem by clicking the Start button and then clicking search."

How do I allow outside access to this server?

Here's my current smb.conf file:

Code:

[global]
        netbios name = [netbios name]
        server string = [server name]
        map to guest = Never
        log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
        log level = 10
        max log size = 50
        socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
        preferred master = Yes
        local master = Yes
        dns proxy = No

[Data]
        path = /[dir name]/
        valid users = [three seperate users go here]
        read only = No
        create mask = 0777
        directory mask = 0777

Thanks in advance for any help.

michaelk · 02-16-2007, 11:55 AM

At first glance it might be a firewall issue but you really do not want to allow smb traffic over the internet since it is not secure. If you want something more then ssh then some kind of VPN is in order. hamachi is a very easy vpn to setup in both windows and linux.

joelkillspeople · 02-16-2007, 12:13 PM

Ok, thanks. I had discussed this with someone else, and the same thing was said. Then I realised that using windows as the FTP client is just about the same as having samba access. I'll just switch to FTP for external access.

Thanks for the help!

Joel

michaelk · 02-16-2007, 05:10 PM

I also suggest using sftp since regular ftp is not secure either. I use winscp.