Samba is an implementation of the smb protocol that allows me to setup network shares on my linux machine that I can open on a variety of devices.

I think the homelab is starting to intrigue me enought to dive into the path of experimenting with different things that I might want setup in my own home. One key piece of this is network storage. As I looked into nas, I realized that it takes a dedicated machine, or one virtualized at a lower level than I have capability for right now.

Humble Beginnings

To get goind I am going to make a directory /srv/samba/public open to anyone on my network. I am not going to worry too much about it, I just want something up and running so that I can learn.

Install samba, open the firewall, and edit the smb.conf


sudo apt install samba samba-common-bin
sudo ufw allow samba
sudo nvim /etc/samba/smb.conf

I added this to the end of my smb.conf


[public]

comment = public share, no need to enter username and password
path = /srv/samba/public/
browseable = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes

Then I made the /srv/samba/public directory and made it writable by anyone.


sudo mkdir -p /srv/samba/public
sudo setfacl -R -m "u:nobody:rwx" /srv/samba/public/

Windows, yes windows

I have a windows desktop in my office, primarily for my wife to run premiere pro, and my son to play Minecraft. I walked over to it, opened the file explorer, and ernt to \\<my-local-ip>. It asked for the username and password, I typed in the username and password of the linux device I have the share running on, and I was in. Right there I could see the Public folder. I opened it and made a files successfully.