Cannot connect to my Snake OS NAS with Ubuntu 14.04
 

Have a strange problem with my new install of Ubuntu 14.04, firstly I cannot browse my (wifi) network through the file system, even though it shows the Windows Network and then MSHOME (the correct network designation), MSHOME is empty. I can link to the different servers on the network by means of Gigolo except for one: a little NAS that runs Snake OS (a cut-down Linux variant) which has a hard drive that holds all the update and transfer data for the network and is the hub of my network. Try as I may I cannot connect to this even though two other Windows XP machines and one notebook that runs Salix Linux OS have no such problems; and my previous install on the same machine Ubuntu 13.10 was fine. Any suggestions for a fix or a work-around?

You need to post some useful information.

Can you ping the NAS form the failing system?

Have you updated the /etc/hosts file on the failing system?

Open a command prompt, run the command 'ifconfig wlan0' ( wlan0 I'm guessing that is the name of your wifi card ) put the correct name in if its not waln0. Post the results here.

Are you using static IP addresses or are you using DHCP?

Are all the devices on the same sub-net?

Thanks for the response.
Here are what I know or have found.
Yes, under its IP address 192.168.1.3, ping time is under 4 ms.

No, am pretty new to all this, had no idea about it. Only fiddled with smb.conf.
This is the contents of that file: (are those IP addresses correct?)
I am using DHCP in the router and have reserved the IP addresses of most - but not all - of the devices that connect to it.

I have up to 11 devices connected to my network. Three of these are desktops, two with Windows XP and one with Linux, and two Notebooks one with Linux and one with Windows XP, and two printers. All the computers are on the Windows Network "MSHOME" and the printers are on "Workgroup". The actual network is called "merlin" and covers all devices.
Paul.

Most things look normal. Thank-you for your detailed answers.

First of all, you might benefit from updating the 'hosts' file on each system, unless you are running your own DNS server. On a linux system you will find the file in the /etc directory. This file is a simple text file listing host names and IP addresses. It is used by the kernel to route packets if the DNS service does not know where the target IP address is. It saves the user from needing to know IP addresses. Depending how your windoze networking is configured, it may be using names to find targets in your network.

The host file. Here are few lines from mine, as an example.

You can use IPv4 or IPv6 addresses in the file. The format is:

You have the same file on any windoze system. If you do a 'find' on windoze, you should be able to locate it.

Can you tell us what kind of program 'Gigolo' is? Not at all familiar with it.

Since this seems to be a samba problem, can you post the configuration for your server?

I have a NAS, I connect to it with ssh, and configure it. The original code was set up for configuration through a web browser. I found ssh to be much more effective at managing the NAS. Can you connect to the NAS with ssh, or telnet?

IMHO it is a client not server problem.

You can see shares on every computer on the network except for the NAS box?
Have you tried any other means besides Gigolo to view shares on the NAS box? Nautilus, or via console utilities?

Try the following command. (Just press enter at the password prompt) You should see the NAS shares.
smbclient -L NAS-IP-address

Thanks for all that.
That is correct, I can see and mount all other shares except the Snake OS NAS box.
Anyhow, I tried a few things.
Included the IP addresses into the "hosts" file as suggested above, although I only entered the host's name once unlike the example, because I could not understand as to why this was entered twice and in that case what the correct format should be. I used the network names that came up on a Windows Network Scanner on my Windows XP machine to ensure I had the syntax and capitalization right.
Anyhow, this appear to have changed nothing.
I also did an "smbclient -I--192.168.1.3" to see if the little NAS (server gwydion) could be seen by Samba and that seemed happy. No timeouts, nothing.
Then I tried to connect and I got this:

I just wonder whether it could be a timing problem and the shares of the little NAS don't mount because Samba does not give it enough time to do so.
I am still a little baffled by it all.
I have provided below my "smb.conf" file with the comments removed to make it a little less unwieldy, in case that harbors the problem and needs changing:
Thanks in advance,
Paul.

Let me clear up this point.

As far as the format, it is a plain text file, up to three columns per entry. The first column, is the IP address of one system. Next is the domain name example duelie.cliffshome.org and the last column is an alias. It can be a shorter name you wish to refer to the machine by, for example 'duelie'. In the case of the domain name, a short name also works just fine. You do not need to provide an alias though.

I'm no expert when it comes to samba. That said, it looks like you are trying to implement pam. I have never used it, so I don't know anything about it.

There are some things you can try. First of all, here is the way I config my servers.

Try adding these lines :

in the global section. I found they helped me 'see' the shares from other systems. What ever you use for a workgroup name is fine, as long as all systems use the same name.

Possibly others will be able to spot another thing you can try? Hope this helps.

What does happy mean?
You should see something similar to

Some progress but still no NAS access.
 

Hello camorri, your suggested additions to my smb.conf did work, I can now see the hosts under the Ubuntu file manager "Browse Network", which I could not before; although the little NAS is also shown there, I cannot open it, it still times out; but I can open all the other hosts and look at and open their shares, copy files, etc. So that is a little progress in this puzzling saga.
I have listed the "hosts" file here, I hope this is now correct; "merlin" is the name of the network.
Here is also the modified smb.conf, just in case the problem still resides there:
Thanks so far, Paul.

Hello michaelk
I saw nothing similar to that, the line just went down one and as I got no errors I thought that was it.
Obviously there is a problem. I still wonder whether it is a timing problem (timing set too short) that prevents the shares from being mounted. But of course I am only guessing and at any rate I would not have a clue how to fix this.
So any help would be greatly appreciated.
As you can see from my other reply, we made some progress but being able to connect to the little NAS remains elusive.
Thanking you, Paul.

No, this is not correct. The second field is the same for all your entries.

The use of the /etc/hosts file is to simplify the need to use IP addresses when the DNS ( Domain Name Server ) does not know the IP addresses of your network. Each entry has to be unique.

First of all, from a terminal, to determine what hostname you have set, type hostname and press enter. The system will return the value you have set for hostname. The value returned should be in column 2. Right now, you have several set to merlin.

If you typed 'ping merlin' your kernel wouldn't know which merlin to ping.

The names should be meaningful to you, and who ever uses your network.

What would work is something like this:
These names, if they match the results by checking each hostname on each system, will work. The simple test is to try to ping a system using just the name in the /etc/hosts file. Example 'ping GWYDION' should work the same as typing 'ping 192.168.1.3'.

The third column is optional. An alias is just another nick name for the system. If the real hostname of a system is GWYDION, and you find that too difficult to remember, adding an alias like 'dion' would work. Then the line would look like:
Hope that clarifies the hosts file.

Corect Hosts file?
 

My misunderstanding.
So here is the - I hope now correct - code:
Will try this and get back.
Just realized I missed your previous question:
Gigolo is a program that mounts shares automatically, it can be configured to run at bootup. It is very handy in setting automated access to parts of the network. Gigolo runs fine now and mounts each share, except for the little NAS on 192.168.1.3, that remains elusive.
Thanks, Paul.

Just a quick added note:
I have activated the inbuilt FTP server in the little NAS and found that I could mount and access this fine in Ubuntu 14.04
I can also use Firefox to browse the NAS by means of HTTP.
But any attempt to browse it from the file manager still comes up with:
As my NAS is the hub of my network, I am still hoping that this last problem can be resolved, so if anyone has any suggestions............

This is a problem in the samba server config. First thing I would do, is make a very simple config file. Get that working, and then add what else you need.

I see you have pam in there. That the first thing I would get rid of. Do you really need that on a home network?

I have replaced smb.conf with the original unembellished smb.conf file and just modified the information to suit my computer. As I am hardly an expert in all this, I would not have the foggiest idea as to what I should leave and can remove from the smb.conf file.
But as it stands, we have made some progress.
1. I can now browse all servers on my network from the Ubuntu file system, where before they did not show up. The exception of course is the little NAS (gwydion) which I can see but not open; although FTP from the Ubuntu machine works fine and I can see and copy stuff from the FTP directory to my Ubuntu machine on the little NAS. But I cannot access the NAS from my file system, and thus cannot mount any of its directories. I have changed the setup of the shares in the NAS, but that made no difference, so I doubt the NAS setup is the problem, although its tendency to take time to open may be a problem; but I am only guessing here.
2. Directories on other servers (apart from the NAS) will now mount automatically with Gigolo at boot, without error messages.
3. But some problems remain, as can be seen from the errors shown in the output of smbtree -d3:
I am not sure what "pam" is, but as you can see from the following listing of my smb.conf, this has been disabled as suggested, Unfortunately this seemed to make no difference.
As I said, it is probably my lack of understanding that is a part of the problem here, so I am afraid I will need some concise guidance in order to solve this knotty problem. Regards, Paul.