How to make Linux as unsecured as Windows for file sharing
 

This is my first post and I am a Linux newbie. Did get FC6 installed and played around with the configuration and read many web pages trying to understand how to make this work for my application, but it is time to throw in the towel and see if I can get some help.

I am trying to set-up a simple home network that anyone on the network can freely create, access, modify or delete files in my Linux shared folders, just like Windows file sharing. No firewalls, no passwords, no domain controllers.

I have played with the smb.conf file for a week, trying different example versions, combining them, modifications… and no success. Before I erase the hard drive and buy another copy of windows XP, I would like to give Linux anther chance. If anyone has a suggestion or a smb.conf file I could use, that would be great.

Thanks.

Replace "intefaces = ..." with yours, and run

And, if you're new to linux, don't forget either to restart the samba service after modifying smb.conf, or simply reboot. :)

Glad you were willing to give linux a try. Hang in there--it's a very rewarding operating system, and so much more customizable (and, thus, complex) than Windows.

I just fiddled with my smb.conf until I got it to do what I wanted (which is what you want).

I wanted to share a folder named /home/isaackuo/shared/. This folder is owned by user isaackuo. The changes to smb.conf were:

Set "security" to "share".

Create an entry at the bottom to configure the /home/isaackuo/shared/ share.

Made it to only allow guest logins, with the guest account set to "isaackuo".

After making these changes, I had to restart samba. I'm not sure how you restart samba in Fedora.

Of course, setting the security like this is practically like having no security at all. Sure, the "only" thing an attacker can do is trash/infect/modify/steal the files in my shared folder, but that includes pretty much all the files I care about! Obviously, I work hard to ensure my LAN's borders are secure, because once inside the borders all heck can break loose.

If I ever add wireless to my LAN, I'm going to have to figure out how to do Windows shares more securely.

Oh--additionally...I can sympathize with your struggle. I've never found samba configuration easy. In contrast, nfs configuration for sharing files between Linux systems was dead simple.

Every bit of documentation about SAMBA I've ever seen tells you to use "user" security instead of "share". All documentation seems to assume you're using "user" security. But I never got it to work the way I wanted with "user" security. I always gave up and reverted back to the "share" security method I could get working.