I try to share some folders on my PC with others on the same network. Despite reading a lot of documentation, I find it pretty hard to edit the according config files correctly.
When I looked for a tool to make this process easier, I found plenty of apps allowing you to browse remote shares but non to actually aid with the configuration process in a way that doesn’t require the same level of knowledge as necessary for directly hacking into the configs.
Does anybody know about some dummy (me) proof app?
Are there specific specialties in your setup, so you have to configure a lot manually?
I used an NFS share about 1 or 2 years ago and all I did was copy a template somewhere and change a couple of values. I think, this should be doable, if there is no app that guides you through the process in detail.
For example, this tutorial seems very easy to me. Could this already help you or is there information missing?
That said, I don’t really know anything about Samba, except that I know what it is.
Mainly Linux but also Windows as I failed to convince my partner to ditch it, so it probably has to be Samba.
Regarding the link you posted, it doesn’t match my requirements:
It is yet another way to access already existing shares on a remote machine but not one to easily share existing directories. I’m looking for information about the server side whilst the link explains the client side.
In order to automatically mount the remote share via /etc/fstab it requires the server’s IP address but what happens if it changes, say, after a reboot of the router?
The whole issue of user rights is not mentioned at all, neither for the client nor for the server side.
I don’t have your environment, so this hint maybe useless for you.
If I wanted to allow/create shares simply GUI, having Debian I’d install
gadmin-samba
Probably I’d need caja-share, because we have MATE.
Maybe gnome-user-share, if that fits your DE better.
Installation was no problem, worked like a charm, just had to add the repository’s mirror to /etc/apt/sources.list, but, it is merely a frontend to edit /etc/smb.conf so it requires the same level of expertise as editing the config file directly which actually seems to be easier to me than dealing with too many options in the GUI.
Just one more thing, if you already managed to make the shares…
I prefer gio mount (or gvfs) over /etc/fstab method, because in fstab you can mount a share which is then available system-wide. Our desktops in my home are multi-user, so my kid logs in, he has different shares to mount, than I have for example. Gigolo is a nice utility to manage and mount these shares on login. I like this better, than mounting a share on system startup.
-Because we have a dedicated (central) Samba server, the others are purely client only, I never played with such user-share stuff, so that was just shot in the dark
Good point, mentioning “Gigolo” - I also have kids and with their Raspberry Pi in the living room they should only be able to access family photos and children’s films.
Thank you @kgwoo! I will check it out. For now, I skipped the Samba approach and just use NFS shares. As long as no Windows clients are not involved, it’s actually simple enough to set up without a GUI.
NFS is a piece of cake for me usually - just edit /etc/exports and share away (after running exportfs -a)…
However - I detest having to set Samba up from scratch…
In the past I’ve installed and used “webmin” to setup Samba and had success (I’ve also used that to manage named / bind databases) - because IMHO it’s unnecessarily complex…
