Impossible to make share folders accesible and writable without using modyfing config files.

[TomasHnyk]

I have a simple home network and I would like to have my $HOME/Desktop folder to be accesible with writable permissions from other machines on the network (mainly windwos xp) and without need to filling in any passwords, but that is not absolutely necessary. I think this is something many users would like to do.
Now, when I go to System > Administration > Shared Folders click Add, fill in path to Desktop folder, check Allow browsing folder and leave unchecked Read only, the folder is not accesible from other machines (well, actually, it is not even visible, but reboot corrects this and simple sudo killall smbd nmbd and then sudo smbd & sudo nmbd & should do the same - but I have not gone deep into this, maybe it was an issue with other machines on the network) - it wants me to fill in a login and a password.
Well, I tried to fill in login name and password of my ubuntu account, but that did not work. Luckily I know that when I go to /etc/samba/smb.conf and set security = share (and restart samba), the folder is accesible. I cannot write to it though. I am lucky once more and again go to /etc/samba/smb.conf and add guest ok = yes and force user = root to [Desktop] share. After restarting samba, is sudenly works. I do not know if it is not insecure though.
However, I think this is far to complicated for average user - me being one of them - could not be default smb.conf file tweaked so that all this would be easier? I searched the forums and it seems this is not possible without using terminal - and this is a very common task.

[Victor Sergienko (singalen)]

Ubuntu should replace W%ndows, right?
So there's no sense in Samba requiring authentication with Linux users. The user should be able to share directory easily.
The guest ok should be yes, security should be share (or domain). Or at least the GUI should allow to do it.

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

Just realized that force user = root is not a best idea because it produces files with root's ownership and ordinary users cannot do anything about them - force user should be the same as owner os shared directory.
Anyway, this does not seem to interest many people:-(.

[mheily (devel-heily)]

This has nothing to do with smb.conf.

All remote users need to be added to the smbpasswd file in addition to the standard UNIX /etc/passwd file.

For example, to create a user named 'joe' that can access files via Samba, run this command:

adduser joe
smbpasswd -a joe

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

Well, this requires terminal and my point was that sharing folders should not require terminal.
I.E. there should be a dialog somewhere in shares-admin that allows you to create users to access samba share.

[Pascal d'Hermilly (pascal-tipisoft)]

I confirm In short:
- It should be possible to share(without file editing) something with a windows machine without the need for a username and passwd.
- There should be an easy interface to manage accounts

NB. You might want to change the overall description of the bug so that it is clearly stated. The above text is GPL ;-)

[Wladston Viana (wladston)]

Oh how I confirm it!!

Following Paloseco's idea, (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=250751&page=2) a simple checkbox saying "Allow people from the same workgroup to access my shares" in this screen http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/659_or/50.png would be enought.

[Bump (bump55)]

Bug filed to gnome.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=355572

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

this is not a bug in samba but in GNOME, actually gnome-system-tools