Unable to Create Share in 18.3 Mate for Network file sharing

[Cavemann]

Hello All
The following is a bit long but hopefully explains the situation.

I have a number of home networked computers (all LM17.3 Mate ) that have successfully worked until I started playing with upgrading 2 of them to 18.3 Mate and 19.Mate mixture of 32 and 64 bit.

The installations have been made in accordance with a post some time ago by xenopeek with a separate root partition and separate home partition. I also now note that there are possible Preference problems with reinstalling a different version of Mint. I was trying to keep my Home folders intact and just install a different version on mint to the root partition.

Altair4 solved a recent problem with the 18.3 versions not seeing the 17.3 version on the Network by adding samba.services to /etc/avahi/services and this worked perfectly and all computers see each other.

I have installed Caja-share to be able to share files on the network

On the 17.3 (untouched machine) the Properties/Folder Permissions and Share Tabs work flawlessly and files here can be accessed from the 18.3 machines

On the 18.3 machines the Folder Permissions seem to work ok but when attempting to Create Share on the Share Tab I get the following notes:

'net usershare' returned error 255: mkdir failed on directory /var/run/samba/msg.lock: Permission denied

net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error no such file or directory.
Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

There is only a directory Private under /var/lib/samba and nothing else

AS Administrator I made a directory /var/lib/samba/usershares and tried again to Create Share with the following result

Same error 255 : Permission denied

net usershare add: cannot convert name “Everyone” to a SID. The connection was refused. Maybe smbd is not running.

I have read a lot of the networking posts and am getting a bit lost after trying some commands that seem to apply (well out of my depth but trying)

Included here is Testparm -s

peter@peter-HP-t610-WW-Thin-Client:~$ testparm -s
Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
rlimit_max: increasing rlimit_max (1024) to minimum Windows limit (16384)
WARNING: The "syslog" option is deprecated
Processing section "[printers]"
Processing section "[print$]"
Loaded services file OK.
WARNING: The 'netbios name' is too long (max. 15 chars).

Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE

# Global parameters
[global]
server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
server role = standalone server
map to guest = Bad User
obey pam restrictions = Yes
pam password change = Yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
unix password sync = Yes
syslog = 0
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 1000
dns proxy = No
usershare allow guests = Yes
panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
idmap config * : backend = tdb


[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
create mask = 0700
printable = Yes
browseable = No


[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /var/lib/samba/printers
peter@peter-HP-t610-WW-Thin-Client:~$

Also at one stage in the process I tried something (forgotten what) and the result said smbd.services does not exist.

I would appreciate some help and guidance please
Thank you
Peter

[altair4]

On the 18.3 machines the Folder Permissions seem to work ok but when attempting to Create Share on the Share Tab I get the following notes:

'net usershare' returned error 255: mkdir failed on directory /var/run/samba/msg.lock: Permission denied

net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error no such file or directory.
Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

Took me a bit to reproduce this error mesage but I think I figured it out.

If I boot into an untouched Mint 18 MATE install and install caja-share it pulls in a whole mess of dependencies except one: samba. If you try to share a folder in Caja without samba installed you will get that exact series of errors.

I installed it:

Code: Select all

sudo apt install samba

Error messages went away.

How caja-share could not have the samba package listed as a dependency is a mystery.

[Cavemann]

Hello Altair4
Thank you very much for your reply - I assumed that Samba was automatically installed with Mint??

I have just installed samba as per your instruction and a whole load of stuff was installed with it.

Rebooted and tried again to Create Share with the following result:

'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare add: cannot create tmp file /var/lib/samba/usershares/:tmpyQPfne

when I click again on create share the last file name changes to /:tmpoajc72

click again on Create Share the last file name changes to /:tmpvN3126

and this seems to go on forever with the characters after /:tmpxxxxxx changing with every click to create share

One thing I forgot to mention and hopefully should be irrelevant is that all the earlier installations of Mint were on conventional 2.5" HDD 60 - 80 GB.

In my changing I am installing on 120GB WD Green and 250GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD.
I have had Mint 17.3 on a 60GB OCZ without problem.
I can't see that it should make a difference but everything is possible?

Regards
Peter
I have ha

[Cavemann]

Hello All / Altair4

After my last post and reading the announcement re installing 19 without internet connection I made a new 18.3 Mate usb installation stick and disconnected internet and reinstalled as previously .
Did not do any updates and still same result Create Share would not work - (I was hopeful ?)
BTW I had to add the samba.service file so 18.3 machine was visible on the network.

So then went to install samba as you suggested, and in doing so Terminal advised that some dependencies could not be resolved hence not installed.
These were all Python related.
I don't know why but I then went to package manager to see what I could do there to install samba
I saw caja-samba and a few python related applications so marked them for installation but when they tried to install it said there was a broken package .
Before this the package manager showed 0 broken packages.
Somewhere in here I went back to Terminal to install samba and it worked.
I tried to repair the broken packages from the edit menu but nothing seemed to happen - I thought it said could not resolve 2 python dependencies -but a bit later as I scrolled back up to see caja -share it was highlighted green and installed.
Now there are 0 Broken packages shown, all the python related files seem to be installed and the Create Share function works and the 18.3 mate machine is accessible on the network - file sharing works.
I have just made a Timeshift snapshot before doing any online updates.
I have just done the installation updates and everything still seems to work.

Thank you again very much for your help and guidance and with a bit of luck I can sort this problem out when I try it on the next machine.

Regards
Peter

[Cavemann]

Hello Again
Just for info the same problem again in the other machine this time 18.3 mate 64 bit

Going directly to package manager could not fix unresolved dependencies / broken package.

Back to terminal and attempt to install samba - only some files would install - three unresolved would not install.

Back to Package manager trying to fix broken packages and install Caja -share.

Caja share installed
Back to terminal to install samba - remaining packages installed , reboot and Create share works
How /why this roundabout method???
Regards
Peter

[CaptainKirksChair]

One other thing to remember...if you have the Linux firewall enabled you will not be able to contact that computer via the network. You can enter a firewall rule but I've never done that so you'll likely have to read up on the topic. There is a preconfigured rule for Samba but again, I've never used the rules so I can't speak to the efficacy of any firewall rules.