"Proper" Way to Share Files on a Network?

NotAComputerGuy · 08-15-2013, 09:00 AM

I've got various Linux computers on the network and 1 Windows computer (which is supplied by my work and to be honest is only on the network for internet access). Samba used to work, but then the wind changed and I'm being told that my household plumbing isn't good enough

Code:

mount error(32): Broken pipe

Anyway, previously I have used SSHFS, but it's a little bit resource hungry and it's actually a little too powerful for what I want, which is to be able to listen to my music from any computer in the house.

What's my simplest and easiest way of achieving this please, preferably so I can add a line to my fstab and have it mounted at boot.

Please bare in mind I am a complete computer newbie who often struggles to understand the most basic of tasks.

Doug G · 08-15-2013, 08:16 PM

I have my music library sitting on a linux machine. I generally use sshfs to get to it from other *nix computers, and I have it set up as a read-only share in samba for windows machines.

The music is on a Fedora 19 machine and samba has no problems in my setup.

Darth Maul · 08-16-2013, 07:41 PM

I usually use samba for sharing files, but you said it doesn't work on your side.

If you only want to stream your media files to the network, you can use VLC. Here is a guide if you want to give it a shot.

http://www.howtogeek.com/118075/how-...ork-using-vlc/

VLC is crossplatform so any OS can be used to play your media streams from the network.

Here's a tip not in the guide. After setting up VLC with http streaming, you can use mplayer to play the streams.

Code:

mplayer http://ip-address:8080

descendant_command · 08-16-2013, 09:00 PM

NFS is the simple way.
Export the music dir on the 'server'.
Mount the share on the clients (via fstab).

onebuck · 08-17-2013, 06:54 AM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by NotAComputerGuy

I've got various Linux computers on the network and 1 Windows computer (which is supplied by my work and to be honest is only on the network for internet access). Samba used to work, but then the wind changed and I'm being told that my household plumbing isn't good enough

Code:

mount error(32): Broken pipe

Anyway, previously I have used SSHFS, but it's a little bit resource hungry and it's actually a little too powerful for what I want, which is to be able to listen to my music from any computer in the house.

What's my simplest and easiest way of achieving this please, preferably so I can add a line to my fstab and have it mounted at boot.

Please bare in mind I am a complete computer newbie who often struggles to understand the most basic of tasks.

Samba would be the way to exchange data or share between MS Windows and Gnu/Linux;

Quote:

From Slackware®-Links Server section;

Slackware® Samba Setup <- 'File and printer sharing on the local network using Slackware®' + Alien_Bob's Wiki
Simple Slackware Setup <- 'Connect your Windows machine(s) to your Linux machine(s) over your network, then Samba is what you need. Essentially, Samba allows your Linux machine to communicate with your Windows network to share files, resources, and printers. This document will cover the steps of installing and configuring Samba on Slackware 11.0.0.' + Applicable
SMB-HOWTO <- 'Describes how to use the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, also called the Session Message Block, NetBIOS or LanManager protocol, with Linux using Samba. Although this document is Linux-centric, Samba runs on most Unix-like operating systems.'
Quick and dirty Samba setup <- 'Samba is an open source project that allows Windows users to connect to a Linux server from which to share data.'
Getting Vista to work with Samba
Get Vista and Samba to work <- 'NTLMv2 authentication is supported in Samba 3.0'
Samba-3 by Example <- 'This book is your means to the straight path. It provides step-by-step, proven, working examples of Samba deployments. If you want to deploy Samba-3 with the least effort, or if you want to become an expert at deploying Samba-3 without having to search through lots of documentation, this book is the ticket to your destination.'

Hope this helps!

itlb · 08-17-2013, 09:35 AM

I would use NFS considering there is only one Windows PC. Windows 7 has an in-built NFS client I believe...

lleb · 08-17-2013, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NotAComputerGuy

I've got various Linux computers on the network and 1 Windows computer (which is supplied by my work and to be honest is only on the network for internet access). Samba used to work, but then the wind changed and I'm being told that my household plumbing isn't good enough

Code:

mount error(32): Broken pipe

Anyway, previously I have used SSHFS, but it's a little bit resource hungry and it's actually a little too powerful for what I want, which is to be able to listen to my music from any computer in the house.

What's my simplest and easiest way of achieving this please, preferably so I can add a line to my fstab and have it mounted at boot.

Please bare in mind I am a complete computer newbie who often struggles to understand the most basic of tasks.

not a worry. Ideally you will stick with native languages to share. In the Linux world that would be NFS to share media/files/data/etc via your LAN. To connect the MS Windows box you would setup SAMBA.

As mentioned the VLC is an other great option for just streaming media via your LAN.

As for mounting. Ideally you would use NFSv4 on the storage box (your server for both NFS and SAMBA) and export that data out to your workstations. Instead of using fstab, as this can cause issues if not 100% configured correctly. like causing the workstation or the server to hang for minutes to hours or just flat out become unresponsive forcing a hard reset, never good for any OS.

the use of autofs when configured properly will allow you to connect on the fly and it will automatically disconnect when not in use for X amount of time. this is done basically at the speed of your LAN. so if you are still running old 10BaseT, then yeah its going to be painfully slow, but anything 10/100 or faster should be just fine. Although you can run into I/O issues with 10/100 if you are streaming to much data. If you can afford to upgrade to 10/100/1000 for the entire LAN (that includes switches/routers, NICs) you will be much better off, or at the least if you are running WiFi on some of the connections to use n band or dual n for best performance.

That is the setup I have at my place for my media server[NFS] (CentOS 6.4) streaming 1080p movies and music to up to 5 workstations all via 10/100/1000 and dual n WiFi with zero issues other then the hardware on my NFS server is about dead. Puffed capacitors. All but 1 of my Linux workstations connects via autofs. The one off is a Raspberry Pi running RaspBMC (a specific XMBC front end for the RPi) that I just hard mount via fstab as I dont want to fight getting autofs running on a system that is not running a FULL Linux release. Plus if it hangs, I just pull the power cord on it, not that big of a deal.

My Apple Mac connect via a script as they do not have anything like autofs for network shares that work with my NFS server.

this link has a good configuration for NFS for you.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...rk-4175473392/

*edit* sorry had wrong link in there. this is the correct link.

as for the samba issues you are having, post your smb.conf and we can look at it to figure out what is going on.

jefro · 08-17-2013, 09:14 PM

I learned something from here.
http://sagehacks.wordpress.com/2009/...der-windows-7/

Perhaps best of all, by right-clicking on the share’s drive icon and selecting ‘Add to library…’, your NFS shares can be rolled into a library (libraries were discussed in this previous post) for sharing across Windows 7 homegroups.

NotAComputerGuy · 08-22-2013, 03:25 PM

Sorry, I didn't work myself correctly. The Windows 7 machine isn't really trusted to access shares, so it's literally on my network for the same of the internet. I didn't know if that would make a different in the machines trying to access each other, like if it would send Microsoft packets round the network and break stuff. Some times after the Windows machine has printed something from the network printer, it stopped the other machines from printing, so that printer is now banned from printing.

I'll look into NFS, as Samba I have found to be either unreliable or difficult set up properly. Either way it's the same end result for me. Often I cannot access things.

Thanks for the VLC suggestions too

PECONET009 · 08-22-2013, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NotAComputerGuy

Sorry, I didn't work myself correctly. The Windows 7 machine isn't really trusted to access shares, so it's literally on my network for the same of the internet. I didn't know if that would make a different in the machines trying to access each other, like if it would send Microsoft packets round the network and break stuff. Some times after the Windows machine has printed something from the network printer, it stopped the other machines from printing, so that printer is now banned from printing.

I'll look into NFS, as Samba I have found to be either unreliable or difficult set up properly. Either way it's the same end result for me. Often I cannot access things.

Thanks for the VLC suggestions too

As said in another post Samba is the best way to go.
As for your Windows machine get it to trust and access your shares.
As for printing wise I have no trouble with my set up with Windows 7 Ultimate and Fedora, they access the printer and print just fine.