Samba Shares Not Appearing

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Hi,

I’m currently fiddling with Samba, trying to make it work on CentOS 7. Before that, I ran Samba successfully in a mixed environment with Slackware64 14.1 on the server and Slackware/Windows Seven on the client side.

I have three sandbox machines running CentOS 7. One has a minimal install with only the samba and samba-client packages. Just to be on the safe side for fiddling, SELinux is disabled, there’s no firewall, etc.

I installed the ‘samba’ and ‘samba-client’ packages and edited a custom
/etc/samba/smb.conf like this:

# /etc/samba/smb.conf

[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
server string = Serveur de fichiers AMANDINE
netbios name = AMANDINE
dns proxy = yes domain master = yes log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m max log size = 1000
syslog = 2
bind interfaces only = yes interfaces = 192.168.2.0/24 localhost hosts allow = 192.168.2. 127. security = user passdb backend = tdbsam unix password sync = no invalid users = root encrypt passwords = yes guest account=smbguest map to guest = bad user force group = users create mode = 0660
directory mode = 0770
load printers = no printing = bsd printcap name = /dev/null disable spoolss = yes

[Public]
path = /srv/samba/public comment = Partage Public public = yes only guest = yes read only = no

[Confidentiel]
path = /srv/samba/confidentiel comment = Partage Confidentiel read only = no invalid users = root nobody smbguest

Note: I explicitly disabled printing because Samba apparently refused to start, complaining about missing printers. And I did not forget to create a handful of Samba users (smbguest as well as normal users).

On the server, I have this:

# smbclient -L localhost -N
Domain=[WORKGROUP] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 4.1.1]

Sharename Type Comment
——— —- ——-
Public Disk Partage Public Confidentiel Disk Partage Confidentiel IPC$ IPC IPC Service (Serveur de fichiers AMANDINE)
Domain=[WORKGROUP] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 4.1.1]

Server Comment
——— ——-
AMANDINE Serveur de fichiers AMANDINE
NAS

Workgroup Master
——— ——-
WORKGROUP AMANDINE

On the desktop clients (running CentOS 7 + GNOME), when I click on
“Explorer le réseau” (I think it is “Browse Network” in english), I
don’t see any server appearing. The ‘samba-client’ package is installed on the clients.

Now I’m a bit clueless. Any suggestions on what to try next?

Cheers,

Niki
—
Microlinux – Solutions informatiques 100% Linux et logiciels libres
7, place de l’église – 30730 Montpezat Web : http://www.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32

4 thoughts on - Samba Shares Not Appearing

  • Hello Niki,

    I replicated your settings on a CentOS 7 on a KVM, I did not see the samba server when I click on “Browse Network”, however when I enter smb:/// I was able to see the shares.

    If Im not mistaken the ‘nmb’ service is responsible for browsing, therefore I stopped it and I was not longer able to see the shares from a windows or samba client.

    What is the output of:
    $ smbclient -L -U
    from one of the samba clients?

  • Le 16/03/2015 10:18, Earl A Ramirez a écrit :

    Here’s what I got. My Samba test server is amandine.microlinux.lan, my two test client machines are bernadette.microlinux.lan and raymonde.microlinux.lan. From either of these client machines, I can’t browse the network, but I can do what you suggested, e. g. :

    Ctrl + L ==> smb://amandine

    This shows the shares, and I can access them correctly.

    Here’s what the suggested smbclient command from one of the client machines looks like:

    [kikinovak@bernadette ~]$ smbclient -L amandine -U kikinovak Enter kikinovak’s password:
    Domain=[WORKGROUP] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 4.1.1]

    Sharename Type Comment
    ——— —- ——-
    Public Disk Partage Public Confidentiel Disk Partage Confidentiel IPC$ IPC IPC Service (Serveur de fichiers AMANDINE)
    Domain=[WORKGROUP] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 4.1.1]

    Server Comment
    ——— ——-
    AMANDINE Serveur de fichiers AMANDINE
    NAS

    Workgroup Master
    ——— ——-
    WORKGROUP AMANDINE

    So it looks like browsing does not work. What now?

    —
    Microlinux – Solutions informatiques 100% Linux et logiciels libres
    7, place de l’église – 30730 Montpezat Web : http://www.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32

  • Le 16/03/2015 10:18, Earl A Ramirez a écrit :

    OK, I experimented some more, and here’s what I got.

    I replaced the system on the two sandbox client machines by a standard
    “vanilla” CentOS+GNOME desktop. At first I couldn’t browse any samba shares, but then I figured out that the standard desktop configuration blocks some outgoing ports in the firewall. So I simply disabled the firewall, and I could browse the shares, connect to them, create files and directories, etc. Which means the server setup looks OK so far. I
    did edit one minor detail in my smb.conf:

    [global]
    workgroup = WORKGROUP
    server string = Serveur de fichiers AMANDINE
    netbios name = amandine dns proxy = yes domain master = yes

    I moved the netbios name from uppercase to lowercase, after a bit of RTFM.

    Now the desktop client setups I usually install start from a quite stripped-down GNOME configuration. I described the installation process here:

    https://kikinovak.wordpress.com/poste-de-travail/

    It essentially installs to 1. install the base system and configure it.
    2. install X11 and configure WindowMaker 3. Install a minimal GNOME and a collection of selected applications.

    On such a minimal client, I have these Samba packages installed:

    [root@bernadette:~] # rpm -qa | grep samba samba-common-4.1.1-38.el7_0.x86_64
    samba-client-4.1.1-38.el7_0.x86_64
    samba-libs-4.1.1-38.el7_0.x86_64

    Unfortunately I can neither browse any Samba shares, nor connect to them directly. So something else must be missing, but what?

    Cheers,

    Niki

    —
    Microlinux – Solutions informatiques 100% Linux et logiciels libres
    7, place de l’église – 30730 Montpezat Web : http://www.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32

  • Le 16/03/2015 17:59, Niki Kovacs a écrit :

    OK, I just found the culprit. The desktop client was missing the gvfs-smb package. I installed it, and now everything works fine.

    Problem solved.

    Cheers,

    Niki

    —
    Microlinux – Solutions informatiques 100% Linux et logiciels libres
    7, place de l’église – 30730 Montpezat Web : http://www.microlinux.fr Mail : info@microlinux.fr Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32