[SOLVED] Mint 19 - No Samba access in Control Center

[J-Philippe]

Hi friends,

On my fresh install of mint 19, I can see the "Samba" icon in Control Center and apps menu but impossible to open it. When I clic on, nothing happens.
I have modified the /etc/samba/smb.conf added : client max protocol = NT1 (and reboot)
I have access to sharing options in Caja but same situation in menu or centre control.
An idea ?

[altair4]

By "Samba" I assume you mean system-config-samba?

This is a textbook example of sloppy package management and abandoned software. You need to do 2 things:

Create a magic file:

Code: Select all

sudo touch /etc/libuser.conf

Then run the application from the command line like this:

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sudo -H system-config-samba

The reason it doesn't run is because it's missing that file and designed to run gksu system-config-samba. There is no gksu in Ubuntu 18.04 so there is no gksu in MInt19.

Enjoy it while you can. I suspect it will be removed from the repositories eventually: Please remove system-config-samba from Ubuntu

[J-Philippe]

Great. Thank you for help.
I followed your instructions and I can access to samba server config.
I understand about the launch of systm-config-sambe and I have verified : in app menu Samba runs : gksu system-config-samba
But there are many tutos (not about samba) that use gksu command.
Do you know why it is not inside new versions of Mint (security ?) ans is there a way to install it ?

[altair4]

I will let the person ( same person who wants system-config-samba to be removed ) who initiated its removal from Debian and then Ubuntu explain the reasoning:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=892768

gksu has been deprecated for years. The intent of gksu is to allow
running apps with elevated privileges but the recommended way to do
that is for the app developer to use PolicyKit to request elevated
privileges for the specific actions that need done instead of for the
whole app to run as root.

For the next major stable release of Debian (codenamed Buster), the
Debian GNOME team plans to default to GNOME on Wayland where gksu does
not even work.

gksu is unmaintained (last upload 2014) and is considered a security
vulnerability.

Therefore, please remove it.

My opinions on this matter will only get me banned from this forum. I should note though that his logic that it is the app developers responsibility to invoke PolicyKit falls apart if the app has been abandoned.

[altair4]

I'm in a mischievous mood today so what I did was this:

[1] Created a file at /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/com.ubuntu.pkexec.system-config-samba.policy

[2] Added this to it:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE policyconfig PUBLIC
 "-//freedesktop//DTD PolicyKit Policy Configuration 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/PolicyKit/1/policyconfig.dtd">
<policyconfig>

  

 <vendor>system-config-samba</vendor>
 <vendor_url>http://gnome.org/</vendor_url>
 <icon_name>text-editor</icon_name>


 <action id="org.gnome.system-config-samba">
 
 <description>Run system-config-samba as root</description>
 
 <message>Authentication is required to run system-config-samba as root.</message>
 
 <defaults>
 <allow_any>no</allow_any>
 <allow_inactive>auth_admin</allow_inactive>
 <allow_active>auth_admin</allow_active>
 </defaults>
 <annotate key="org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.path">/usr/sbin/system-config-samba</annotate>
 <annotate key="org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.allow_gui">true</annotate>
 </action>

</policyconfig

[3] Then edited /usr/share/applications/system-config-samba.desktop and changed this:

Exec=gksu system-config-samba

To this:

Exec=pkexec system-config-samba

[4] A new user would still have to add the magic file: sudo touch /etc/libuser.conf

Now I can run Samba from the Control Centre.

In case you think I'm a genius all I did was copy the polkit "rule" from my Xubuntu 18.04 desktop for it's text editor ( mousepad ) and did a simple Find & Replace replacing every reference of mousepad to system-config-samba and corrected it's executable path.

[J-Philippe]

The explanation of removing gksu is too complex for my little mind and I don't know PolicyKit. I'm just a simple user with no special technical background that try of use an os different of MSWin. Every time someone complicate usage of ubuntu/mint/debian/... it takes the risk of discouraging people like me.
For now, all I see is that many documentation using gksu that are available on internet are no more usable.
But anyway, thank you, Altair4, for your help in finding a replacement solution.

[rambo919]

For the next major stable release of Debian (codenamed Buster), the Debian GNOME team plans to default to GNOME on Wayland where gksu does not even work.

Rip GNOME.... can only imagine the implications for cinnamon & nemo.... as soon as something actually works for once CHANGE EVERYTHING and the cycle of buggyness continues. Last I saw wayland was STILL half done or am I wrong?

[Gaugamela]

Yesterday I spent 4 hours trying to get Mint 19 to recognize Samba shares at my work, and to establish connection to Samba printers.
I thought the purpose of Mint was to be user friendly than Ubuntu? If we have to put up with this bullshit what's the difference then?

I mean, I love Cinnamon, the flatpaks incorporation on the Software Manager was a brilliant idea and I will use this, the support for hybrid GPUs is there. Why is it that there's always something breaking with Linux distros??