I am using a Windows XP box to provide three network file shares. I am running Xubuntu 10.04 LTS as a client and I am seeking advice on how to implement security for the network file share on the Xubuntu client side.

some initial thoughts:

setting appropriate permissions via command line options when the the network file share is mounted ?

making a specific group or user "owner" of the network file share ?

I'm working on a script that runs at start up, looks at who is logged in and based on group id, mounts the appropriate shares and sets the appropriate permissions.

Feel free to direct me to a more appropriate forum. The underlying issue is security but I think the discussion would get pretty specific to network protocols (cifs, smb, etc).

Thanks.

look into pam-mount. http://pam-mount.sourceforge.net/

The irony of an XP box providing a file share is rich.

This is exactly what I need !!! Thanks !!!

That irony is not lost on me. I'll eventually set up a separate samba box but this will have to do for now :-)

No need to use samba. NFS works well for me and is much simpler. Samba is a whole lot of complexity. Finally, there's a little "thanks" button on the message. Would you mind terribly "thanking" me that way?

What is the proper forum to discuss network file sharing ? I've read the pros and cons of nfs vs cifs/smb and security issues made me go with cifs. And as far as I can tell, I'd have to run some extra software on the XP side to do NFS on Windows (confirm ??). Samba is the only thing I'm aware of that works across mac/windows/linux.