HOWTO: Setup samba with Windows XP running as a VMWare server guest

[Ziggy72]

The full title of this howto should be:

"How to setup samba peer to peer with Windows XP which is running as a VMWare server guest on a Ubuntu Dapper host to share files easily"

Using VMWare server to run Windows programs which are not available on Linux will enable you to never have to dual boot again to run your essential Windows applications.

To install VMWare server, follow the directions at:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...ghlight=vmware

Once VMWare is successfully installed and you have Windows XP installed as a guest, you should read Stormbringer's howto at:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...ghlight=vmware

This howto is very largely based on Stormbringer's work, but because I had so much difficulty in getting samba to connect to my Windows XP guest I thought some people might appreciate knowing what steps I finally used.

If you don't use Gnome, you'll have to make a few adjustments.

Ok, here we go...
1)Use Synaptic Package Manager to install samba, samba-common, smbclient and smbfs.

2)Use System -> Administration -> Shared folders to make a shared folder. I suggest you use /home/YOUR_NAME/samba. In Properties:
a) Share with: SMB
b) Name: MyFiles
c) Tick Allow browsing folder
d) In Windows sharing settings, “Domain/Workgroup” is MsHome (or whatever your guest XP machine is) and select “This computer is a WINS server”.
e) Press OK, OK

3)Set permissions on your shared file:

sudo chmod 0777 /home/YOUR_NAME/samba

4)Stop samba:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba stop

5)Backup the original smb.conf file:

sudo mv /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.backup

6)Make a new smb.conf file:

sudo touch /etc/samba/smb.conf

7)Open smb.conf for editing:

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

8)Paste the following into your smb.conf file (mostly copied from Stormbringer)...
(I've put *** (no)against the entries you may need to change immediately. Please remove the ***(nos) when you've finished editing.)

[global]
;General server settings
netbios name = Ubuntu***(1)
workgroup = Mshome***(2)
announce version = 5.0
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_KEEPALIVE SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

passdb backend = tdbsam
security = user
null passwords = true
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
name resolve order = hosts wins bcast
wins support = yes

printing = CUPS
printcap name = CUPS

syslog = 1
syslog only = yes

; NOTE: If you need access to the user home directories uncomment the
; lines below and adjust the settings to your hearts content.
;[homes]
;valid users = %S
;create mode = 0600
 ;directory mode = 0755
;browseable = no
 ;read only = no
;veto files = /*.{*}/.*/mail/bin/

; NOTE: Only needed if you run samba as a primary domain controller.
; Not needed as this config doesn't cover that matter.
;[netlogon]
 ;path = /var/lib/samba/netlogon
;admin users = Administrator
;valid users = %U
 ;read only = no

; NOTE: Again - only needed if you're running a primary domain controller.
;[Profiles]
 ;path = /var/lib/samba/profiles
;valid users = %U
;create mode = 0600
;directory mode = 0700
;writeable = yes
;browseable = no

; NOTE: Inside this place you may build a printer driver repository for Windows 
[print$]
path = /var/lib/samba/printers
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes
read only = yes
write list = root
create mask = 0664
directory mask = 0775

[printers]
path = /tmp
printable = yes
guest ok = yes
browseable = no

; Uncomment if you need to share your CD-/DVD-ROM Drive
;[DVD-ROM Drive]
;path = /media/cdrom
;browseable = yes
;read only = yes
;guest ok = yes

[MyFiles]
path = /home/YOURNAME/samba***(3)
browseable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = no
create mask = 0644
directory mask = 0755
force user = paul***(4)
force group = paul***(5)
available = yes
public = yes
writable = yes

9)Personalise your new smb.conf file by editing the ***(nos). You can do any other editing you want to do later when everything is up and running.
***(1) Use any sensible name, but remember what it is.
***(2) Use the same workgroup name as Windows XP (usually Mshome).
***(3) This is the shared folder you created earlier
***(4 & 5) This is the username you use for Windows XP. Don't use spaces. If necessary, modify the username you use for your guest XP machine (Explorer->Control Panel->User Accounts).

10)Start samba:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba start

11)Add yourself as a samba user:
NOTE: You will be asked for a password - make sure you use the same as you use for login

sudo smbpasswd -L -a your_username
sudo smbpasswd -L -e your_username

That's all for samba, now for the Windows part:

12)In the Windows XP machine VM -> Settings -> Ethernet, I chose Nat

13)Find out the ip of your linux box and the vmware connections by typing ifconfig in a Ubuntu terminal. You will probably see 4 or more ip addresses. Write down each of the 4 (or more) inet addr addresses.

14)In the Windows guest machine:
- Click "START"
- Click "Control Panel"
- Click "Network Connections"
- Find your "LAN Connection"
- Right-click the icon and select "Properties"
- Select the "TCP/IP" Protocol and click the "Properties" button
- Click "Advanced"
- Select the third Tab entitled "WINS"
- Click "Add"
- Type in each of the ip addresses you copied down from 13) above & click “Add” for each one
- Select "Use NetBIOS over TCP/IP"
- Click "OK"
- Click "OK"
- Click "OK"
- Reboot the guest Windows

15)In the Windows guestmachine:
- Click “Start”
- Right-click “My Computer”
- Click “Map Network Drive”
- Choose a folder letter
- In the Folder field type \\Ubuntu (or the netbios name you chose)\MyFiles(the name chosen for the Ubuntu shared folder)
- Tick “Reconnect at logon”
- Press “Finish”

If all has gone well, whatever you see in the Ubuntu shared drive will be seen in the nominated XP drive. Copying or moving files from/to Ubuntu and the XP guest is now very straightforward.

I've given these instructions in good faith and they represent what I had to do to get my samba connection working between my Ubuntu partition and its Win XP VMWare guest. If they don't work for you, I'm sorry but I doubt if there's a lot I can do to help because I am very new to Ubuntu. and I had to struggle for more than a day to get this working. Huge Credits to Peturr for the Howto:VMWare installation, and to Stormbringer for his Howto:Setup Samba Peer to Peer from which I borrowed freely.

Good luck...

[boban]

Good howto... But if you are a little paranoid about security, then I would suggest running samba only for interfaces supplied by vmware. To do it you should add to lines in global section of smb.config:

interfaces = vmnet8 vmnet1
bind interfaces only = true

Of course names of the interfaces can differ - see output of ifconfig...

[Pitt Stains]

***(4 & 5) This is the username you use for Windows XP. Don't use spaces. If necessary, modify the username you use for your guest XP machine (Explorer->Control Panel->User Accounts).

Wow, this might be the first time I post with useful information rather than a solicitation for assistance.

Changing your XP username as described above will not work as expected. Let's say my XP username is "Pitt Stains" and I decide to change it to "pstains" to eliminate the space and make life with Samba easier. When I click my start bar in Windows, it will now say "pstains" at the top rather than "Pitt Stains," but Samba will still require me to manually log in each time I try to connect to a network drive. The old username is still the "official" system username; the new username is more of a display name or an alias.

This knowledge base article (http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;811151) helped me transfer most of the settings of "Pitt Stains" to a newly created account called "pstains." It's not quite perfect, but I believe the only setting I had to change manually in the new account was the desktop background.

Best of luck!
-Pitt

[Pitt Stains]

And here's an even better solution: Don't change either of your usernames!

I'm not sure how I came across this, but here's the correct way to make Samba understand a Windows username with spaces.

In the [global] section of your smb.conf file, add this line:

username map = /etc/samba/smbusers

Then create a file called smbusers, put it in the appropriate directory, and write this to it:

#Unix_name = "Windows name with spaces"
pittstains = "Pitt Stains"

The line that begins with a # is just a comment, if you're new to all this, and obviously you should use your usernames and not mine!

[amborle]

Really nice guide! Worked out of the box for me! Thank you!

[lastrite]

Great guide! Got XP running via Vmware server on Kubuntu sharing files and printers flawlessly with other computers on my windows network.

Much appreciated Ziggy72!

[kadalz]

Hello:

I'm a nob here. I tried many times to follow this How To. I always stuck in the last step, where I tried to setup Map Network Drive. When I tried to put in Forder field: \\server\shared, I got the following error message: The network path \\server\shared could not be found. Here is my smb.conf. Hope somebody can give guidance, which I did wrong. BTW, I use Kubuntu 6.10.

[global]
;General server settings
netbios name = server
workgroup = home
announce version = 5.0
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_KEEPALIVE SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

passdb backend = tdbsam
security = user
null passwords = true
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
name resolve order = hosts wins bcast
wins support = yes

printing = CUPS
printcap name = CUPS

syslog = 1
syslog only = yes

; NOTE: If you need access to the user home directories uncomment the
; lines below and adjust the settings to your hearts content.
;[homes]
;valid users = %S
;create mode = 0600
;directory mode = 0755
;browseable = no
;read only = no
;veto files = /*.{*}/.*/mail/bin/

; NOTE: Only needed if you run samba as a primary domain controller.
; Not needed as this config doesn't cover that matter.
;[netlogon]
;path = /var/lib/samba/netlogon
;admin users = Administrator
;valid users = %U
;read only = no

; NOTE: Again - only needed if you're running a primary domain controller.
;[Profiles]
;path = /var/lib/samba/profiles
;valid users = %U
;create mode = 0600
;directory mode = 0700
;writeable = yes
;browseable = no

; NOTE: Inside this place you may build a printer driver repository for Windows 
[print$]
path = /var/lib/samba/printers
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes
read only = yes
write list = root
create mask = 0664
directory mask = 0775

[printers]
path = /tmp
printable = yes
guest ok = yes
browseable = no

; Uncomment if you need to share your CD-/DVD-ROM Drive
;[DVD-ROM Drive]
;path = /media/cdrom
;browseable = yes
;read only = yes
;guest ok = yes

[Shared]
path = /home/altari/Shared
browseable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = no
create mask = 0644
directory mask = 0755
force user = rais
force group = rais
available = yes
public = yes
writable = yes

Thank you,
Kadalz

[likerice]

thanks for the HowTo. these types of instructions are invaluable to n00bs such as myself.

i might suggest, however, that you add a note ("***(no)") next to the [MyFiles] field in your smb.conf file. i myself chose a different folder name in step 15 of your instructions when mapping the network drive on windows, while failing to amend my smb.conf file.

but then again, i was inebriated at the time

[Foxmike]

Hi! Thank you for the great guide! Just a question: does "NAT" networking or "Bridged" networking makes a difference? I'm using NAT networking, followed all those steps but I cannot access shared folders from an OS to the other. The only shared folders I can access now are: in Windows, shared folders from Windows, and in Ubuntu, shared folders in Ubuntu. I am using Edgy, if that makes a difference.

Thank you!

-FM

[polkadotchickens]

i have diligently followed these instructions, with no results. i apparently don't have an internet connection from within my windows xp -- could this be the problem, potentially? i don't really see how it would be, but it's just a guess, and i have to say i've beaten my head against this for a day, as has a much more linux-experienced friend, and i'm getting nowhere. any help or ideas would be much appreciated.