Hi, I have set up a computer to use as a file server using Samba.

I attached a 1TB hard disk to it and had the system to mount it automatically.

I have 4 user accounts which will be able to access this network share. An administrator account is called "server". I'll call them user1, user2 ... user4.

This is the folder structure:

+-/mnt/FILES
+-BACKUP
backup files (accessible only to "server" user)
+-MUSIC
music1.mp3 (read only files for all users)
music2.mp3
+-PUBLIC
public files... (read/write for all users)
+-USERS
+user1
user1 files... (read only for same group members)
+private
user1 files... (not accessible to group members)
+user2
user2 files... (read only for same group members)
+private
user2 files... (not accessible to group members)
+user3
user3 files... (read only for same group members)
+private
user3 files... (not accessible to group members)
+user4
user4 files... (read only for same group members)
+private
user4 files... (not accessible to group members)

I don't know which groups I should create. I'm having a hard time setting file/folder permissions. And I wanted to know how to set Samba so that it won't ask for a password when accessing public/group files, but asks for it when accessing private user files.

Thanks in advance.

Maybe this, will help you out with the smb.conf file and permissions. In particular, make sure you are setting samba passwords in addition to regular user passwords for each user. As for accessing the shares, I add the shares to my fstab (or map networked drive in windows speak), so it doesn't ask for passwords. I'm not convinced, that in a home setup or something that really demands little to no need for security, that putting in passwords each time is really necessary; you already have one on the computer for logins and unlockings. If that computer is stolen or hacked and they manage to guess/crack the password while still being connected to your network this may be an issue, as they would see whatever that computer was given access to. Auto-mounting also makes it real easy to use an rsync crontab to automate backups. If this is a business setup where security is a concern and you needs passwords to work like you described, then maybe someone will be able to shed a little light on that for you.