[SOLVED] File Sharing Questions

[parkernathan]

A few file sharing questions:

1. When I open the "Sharing" panel next to a file or folder, I receive this message: "Samba needs to be installed, appropriate firewall rules need to be added, and your use account needs to join the “sambashare” group. " Is there a guide for setting this up?

2. I have a Drobo NAS that I generally use for file sharing and put all my shared files/media on the NAS. Should I even try setting up File Sharing in Question 1, or would it be more secure to leave it off and just use my NAS instead.

3. Is there a way to set my NAS shares to auto-mount/connect at startup? They appear in Files, but I have to re-connect to them after reboot.

Thanks!

[AndyMH]

#1 if you 'OK' the share I believe mint will install samba automatically and setup the user groups for you.

#2 I share the Public folder on my PCs to make it easy to copy stuff to and from them. Not much point sharing your PC unless you have more than one.

#3 Yes. you have to edit a file called fstab, lives in /etc. You need to add an entry that looks like this:

Code: Select all

#diskstation mounting under cifs
//diskstation.local/home/	/media/synology	cifs	credentials=/etc/samba/credentials,uid=1000,gid=1000,nofail	0	0

diskstation.local the hostname for my NAS, followed by the folder on the NAS being shared. You can replace the hostname with the IP address, e.g. //192.168.1.123/home/. I have a static IP address set on my NAS.

/media/synology where it mounts in the filesystem on the PC. You can mount it anywhere you like, but the folder must exist.

cifs - the network protocol being used for the mount.

credentials=/etc/samba/credentials points at a simple text file that has two lines, username=xxx and password=yyy. You can put the file anywhere but you must specify the full pathname to it. You can replace credentials=/etc/samba/credentials with username=xxx,password=yyy.

uid=1000,gid=1000,nofail tells mint who the local owner of the mount point is and nofail means don't hang around trying to reconnect to the NAS if it is not there. Without this, if the NAS is not present, boot will take another 90 seconds while linux keeps trying to find it.

You need admin privileges to edit fstab.

When you have made the changes to fstab, in a terminal sudo mount -a to test it.

[parkernathan]

#1-2 Sounds good. I may go ahead and set this up.

#3 I just edited the file. I'll reboot when I get a chance and followup and let you know if it was a success or if I have any further issues.

Thanks!

[AndyMH]

Forgot to mention username=xxx,password=yyy, this is the user on the NAS, not the local user in mint.

[parkernathan]

I setup #3, but I'm not seeing any shares on my desktop. Do I need to make a tweak to the file so they appear mounted on my desktop?

Thanks!

[parkernathan]

Also, I noticed my screen isn't turning off after 10 minutes. Is there a setting in that file that could cause that, or would something else contribute to that?

Thanks!

[parkernathan]

The NAS shares are mounting now. I had a typo in my file paths. Thanks!

[AndyMH]

The NAS shares are mounting now. I had a typo in my file paths. Thanks!

For the future...

I setup #3, but I'm not seeing any shares on my desktop. Do I need to make a tweak to the file so they appear mounted on my desktop?

'It doesn't work' posts do not help, you give us absolutely nothing to work with. If you try something and it fails, post the exactly what you did and what error messages you got.

Also, I noticed my screen isn't turning off after 10 minutes. Is there a setting in that file that could cause that, or would something else contribute to that?

For this one you haven't told us what desktop you are using - cinnamon, mate, or xfce?

[parkernathan]

Sorry for the delay in responding and for the hurriedly-written previous posts. Thursday was a holiday here, so I was in a rush to get as much of this done before leaving the office.

On the file shares, I basically followed all of your instructions you included under #3. At first the file shares were not mounting on the desktop. I went back and checked your instructions, and I made a typo when specifying the path to my file shares. Once I resolved the typo, the file shares mounted successfully.

On the screen sleep issue, I'm running Cinnamon. I want my screen to power off/go to black after 10 minutes. I have it set to power off/go to black after 10 minutes in Power Management and Screensaver. It was powering off/going to black after 10 minutes, but now it's no longer doing so. I wasn't sure if the NAS would cause the issue or if this is a totally new, unrelated issue. I can post a new thread on it if it's a new issue.

Thanks!

[parkernathan]

The screen sleep issue resolved itself, so it wasn't caused by any NAS mounting. Must have been a one off fluke.