Install and Configure Samba



1. Overview
A Samba file server enables file sharing across different operating systems
over a network. It lets you access your desktop files from a laptop and
share files with Windows and macOS users.

This guide covers the installation and configuration of Samba on Ubuntu.


What you’ll learn

How to set up a Samba file server
How to share files across a local network




What you’ll need

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
A Local Area Network (LAN) to share files over




2. Installing Samba
To install Samba, we run:
	sudo apt update
sudo apt install samba

We can check if the installation was successful by running:
	whereis samba

The following should be its output:
	samba: /usr/sbin/samba /usr/lib/samba /etc/samba /usr/share/samba
/usr/share/man/man7/samba.8.gz



3. Setting up Samba
Now that Samba is installed, we need to create a directory for it to share:
	mkdir /home//sambashare/

The command above creates a new folder sambashare in our home directory
which we will share later.

The configuration file for Samba is located at /etc/samba/smb.conf. To add
the new directory as a share, we edit the file by running:
	sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

At the bottom of the file, add the following lines:
	[sambashare]
comment = Samba on Ubuntu
path = /home/username/sambashare
read only = no
browsable = yes

Then press Ctrl-O to save and Ctrl-X to exit from the nano text editor.



What we’ve just added

comment: A brief description of the share.
path: The directory of our share.
read only: Permission to modify the contents of the share folder is only
granted when the value of this directive is no.
browsable: When set to yes, file managers such as Ubuntu’s default file
manager will list this share under “Network” (it could also appear as
browseable).


Now that we have our new share configured, save it and restart Samba for it
to take effect:
	sudo service smbd restart

Update the firewall rules to allow Samba traffic:
	sudo ufw allow samba



4. Setting up User Accounts and Connecting to Share
Since Samba doesn’t use the system account password, we need to set up a
Samba password for our user account:
	sudo smbpasswd -a username

Note
Username used must belong to a system account, else it won’t save.



Connecting to Share
On Ubuntu: Open up the default file manager and click Connect to Server then
enter: ubuntuctn

On macOS: In the Finder menu, click Go > Connect to Server 
then enter: macosctn

On Windows, open up File Manager and edit the file path to:
	\\ip-address\sambashare

Note:
ip-address is the Samba server IP address and sambashare is the name of the
share.

You’ll be prompted for your credentials. Enter them to connect! Samba



If you’d like to take your configuration further…

	Samba Server Guide