Help sharing files securely between win & ubuntu

dekez · 10 Mar 2011 at 10:34

Hi, I’m having trouble understanding how to set up secure file sharing between windows machines (win 7, xp) and my server running ubuntu 10.10 (I’m a linux noob hence using desktop not server version). The background is I have a windows home server, I’ve installed ubuntu on a separate internal hard drive, and am now looking to share the folders on data drives that were previously shared with WHS.

I’m using samba with ubuntu 10.10 and the samba configuration gui, the folders I want to share are on a NTFS drive (which I mount after start up, I guess I need to set up a script or something to do that automatically?)

I set samba to share to everyone, now when I try to access the folder from the win 7 or xp machine I get permission denied. Even though both of those machines user accounts are included in the NTFS permissions on the shared folder. However if I change the NTFS permissions for the folder (by booting into the original server OS – whs) to allow everyone full control, then boot back into ubuntu and then try to access the folder from the win machines it works fine.

Hopefully that makes sense, so I guess my question is, how do I set up user accounts on win / samba / ubuntu so that authorised win users can access the shares but everyone can’t? Or should I be coping the folders / files I want to share on to a new drive with a different file system rather than NTFS? Forgive me if this is a totally stupid question or has be answered before.

Cheers

wolvers · 15 Mar 2011 at 13:06

I'm a bit of a Linux noob too but I might be able to help. I think you need to leave the NTFS folder permissions set to everyone and control the access with the shared folders you've created in Ubuntu and shared with samba. Then, when you map the network drive on the windows PCs you log into it with the accounts that you've created in the samba shares. That should only allow that login to access the folders that you've allowed it to in the samba/shares set up. I hope that makes sense..... and works!

Oh, and don't be afraid to use the server version. You can admin it from a browser on a win machine by using Webmin. I even get emails from my server telling me that it's found updates for itself!

The server version is more suited to what you want as well really, ie should be a bit faster maybe. See here for a good guide;

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-howto/30573-build-your-own-atom-based-nas-part-2

dekez · 15 Mar 2011 at 13:10

Thanks for the reply, that is exactly what I did in the end, NTFS to everyone, then only a user account with samba can access it. So the first time I accessed the files I had to put in my linux credentials and it worked

wolvers · 15 Mar 2011 at 13:18

Great.

Do you know if Ubuntu has made any difference to your transfer speeds?

dekez · 15 Mar 2011 at 15:40

I don't know to be honest, all the backups used to do run at night and I don't really transfer stuff enough to pay much attention to them.

I've certainly not noticed any difference when opening / playing HD movies or anything like that.