Linux/Windows Network Drive

Question

I have a 750 GB HDD plugged into my Ubuntu Desktop, I want to make this show up as a Network Drive on my Windows 7 Laptop and my Ubuntu netbook. Is there an easy way to do this?

Answer 1

It's simple enough using Samba.

sudo apt-get install samba samba-tools system-config-samba smbfs
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

You'll need to create a new share for example....

[share]
    comment = Shares
    browsable = yes
    path = /path/to/mounted/drive
    public = yes
    writable = yes
    guest ok = yes

You'll also need to add the following to the global section of smb.conf

[global]
    guest account = nobody
    map to guest = bad user

Now run the following command to create the nobody user...

smbpasswd -an nobody

The only caveat to setting it up this way is it the username on your laptop or netbook are the same as a valid user on your desktop you'll get a password prompt. You can put any old rubbish in that prompt and you should get into the share as a guest. You could assign specific permissions if you wanted to the share but this is the way that replicates public folder shares in Windows.

Much more info about smb.conf parameters can be found at samba.org