Viewing files across ethernet

[Music Guy123]

I have a problem, how do I view files being shared on a windows computer. Ok, so LMDE is running on an old desktop. Next to it I have my laptop which runs a mixture of Windows 7, Ubuntu which will soon be changed to cinnamon ! Anyway, I'm running windows at the moment, so we'll deal with that! The laptop is feeding the desktop internet as the desktop doesn't have a wifi card and the router is somewhere else! So wifi goes into the laptop and gets passed via ethernet to the desktop. So, how can I view the files stored on the laptop from the desktop. I managed to do this on linux mint 13 maya XFCE. I set the files on the laptop to sharing locally. I then went into a file manager and just went to network and could get the files. However, in LMDE XFCE, these files do not seem to show up in Network. My laptop shows up, I can go into it but I can't see the shared files.

This is what I mean, in normal Linux mint XFCE when I click network and then my laptop, I get this:

maya.png (24.11 KiB) Viewed 552 times

However, in LMDE, I only get this:

LMDE.png (8.23 KiB) Viewed 552 times

I hope that makes sense, hope someone can help me! All the best,

Music Guy

[sobrus]

It works perfectly on my LMDE box (with mate).
May be a silly question, but did you enter proper username to access these shares (most probably windows user name)?

[Music Guy123]

It works perfectly on my LMDE box (with mate).
May be a silly question, but did you enter proper username to access these shares (most probably windows user name)?

The thing is, on normal mint, I had to enter a username and password to view what you see in the screen shot. For LMDE, I didn't have to enter a password to get into that file but I can't see anything.

[altair4]

Win7 is a lot like Win2K in that it really doesn't know how to handle anonymous access - which is what you are doing in the initial browse of the machine's shares. Not exactly sure why it's working one way in Mint and another in Debian but try an experiment:

In LMDE run the following command:

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smbtree

It should list all the shares including any you have on the Linux machine.

If it doesn't list the Win7 machine run the command this way:

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smbtree -U username

Try it first with a username of: guest

When it asks for guest's password just hit enter. That probably won't work so try it next with a username that matches one on your Win7 machine. Does it list the shares now?

[Music Guy123]

Thank you very much for replying, it is very much appreciated! I was told you were a guru and was very much hoping you would notice my thread! I have a slight problem, typed in 'smbtree' to terminal, got told: 'The program 'smbtree' is currently not installed....please install 'smbclient'' So, I'll try to install that and get back to you!

[altair4]

Thank you very much for replying, it is very much appreciated! I was told you were a guru and was very much hoping you would notice my thread! I have a slight problem, typed in 'smbtree' to terminal, got told: 'The program 'smbtree' is currently not installed....please install 'smbclient'' So, I'll try to install that and get back to you!

Don't know how much of a guru I am but that error message is not a good sign since I think even LMDE has smbclient installed by default. Pure Debian based systems generally don't have everything configured correctly for samba but the client side of samba should have been in the initial install.

[Music Guy123]

Well, I have just installed smbclient and ran smbtree, this is what I got:

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lin@xxx-pc:~$ smbtree
Enter XXX's password:
WORKGROUP
   \\XXX-PC             xxx-pc server
      \\XXX-PC\IPC$              IPC Service (xxx-pc server)
      \\XXX-PC\print$            Printer Drivers

The way I take that, it shows to be there, but I can't access it in a file manager?

[altair4]

The only machine smbtree sees is itself - XXX-PC. Also smbtree runs without errors so it appears that the Windows machine is not even in the network - at least as far as samba is concerned.

You might want to go through the checklist first and see if that fixes anything:
HowTo: Samba Browsing Problems Checklist: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=88146&start=0

[Music Guy123]

Thank you very much for replying. I'm afraid I just blanked out my name with XXX. And the name for the Linux and windows pc are the same!!
I'm pretty sure the two things under workgroup are my windows laptop. I think the third one is too but am not certain!! Anyway, thank you ever so much for your help, it is very much appreciated!!! I'll go through that list on the link, see if it fixes anything! Thank you very much again!

[altair4]

And the name for the Linux and windows pc are the same!!

That you cannot do.

Edit smb.conf as root on the Mint machine and add the following line - right under the workgroup line:

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netbios name = xxx-pc-mint

Then restart samba:

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sudo service samba restart

[Music Guy123]

Right, did some playing around, got this!

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xxx@xxx-pc:~$ smbtree
Enter xxx's password:
WORKGROUP
   \\LMDE-DESKTOP           xxx-pc server
      \\LMDE-DESKTOP\IPC$              IPC Service (xxx-pc server)
      \\LMDE-DESKTOP\print$            Printer Drivers
   \\Win-PC             
      \\Win-PC\IPC$              IPC Service (yyy-pc server)
      \\Win-PC\print$            Printer Drivers

That should clear things up a bit! Now, how do I access it, I still can't see my shared drives in the windows pc!

Thank you very much for the help, it is very much appreciated! All the best!

[Music Guy123]

Oh and seem to be having another problem, if you want, I'll start a new thread for this. However, it's probably just a minor fix. When I put the computer on suspend, I can't wake it up again. I can hear it waking up but it doesn't respond. The screen stays blank (no signal) and the mouse and keyboard just don't receive power. The only way is I have to restart it by pressing and holding the power button then rebooting...not the cleanest way! Is there anyway of fixing it?

[altair4]

According to smbtree you have no shares on either your Linux or your Windows box. Don't know what to tell you. If you think they are really there then run the following command:

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nautilus smb://username@win-pc

Change "username" to one that exists on the Windows machine.

If Nautilus opens up with actual shared folders then bookmark it in nautilus.

As far as not being able to come out of suspend - that I can't help you with.

[Music Guy123]

Hmm, I can (in thunar, had to purge nautilus due to other issues) go to network, see my windows pc but I only see the file 'print$' I don't see the shared files. Which is very strange, I see them in normal mint, I'll go check it but I normally do. Yes, just checked, all files are viewable in normal linux mint maya xfce. They just aren't viewable in LMDE...!

Edit: Don't worry about the suspend thing, I've found out apparently some hardware doesn't support it, it's not a problem!

[altair4]

I don't have an answer for this behavior, sorry. Smbtree is a low level utility and it's pretty much a binary thing - it will either show all the shares or none depending on the problem. I've never known it to show only some subset of shares - like the pseudo IPC$ and print$ shares - and not the others.

[Music Guy123]

Ok, so you are saying that it's not going to possible then ! Ok, I'll think of something different, thanks for your time!