How to allow guest access in SAMBA

Question

So basically, I'm having the exact same issue as the guy in this thread. I can see the samba print share, but not access it from windows. The top answer, which looks promising states that I must do the following:

You need to add a guest user to the samba password database. Usually it is done by mapping guest in samba configuration files to a UNIX existing user; give that user printing rights via groups; then you should be able to access the printer via the \server\ URI.

Can somebody please explain to me how exactly this is done? I've googled around and it hasn't been of much help.

Thanks!

UPDATE
here is the printer portion of my /etc/samba.conf file. let me know if you want the rest and i'll put it in a google doc or something

[printers]
comment = All Printers
; browseable = yes
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = yes
guest ok = yes
; read only = no
guest account = blain
create mask = 0700

Answer 1

In order to set up guest access in Samba, you need to set up a user that it will pretend to log in as. So, let's say you want to share files on /mnt/somepartition/files publically. Your configuration might look like this:

[public_files]
    comment = Public files
    path = /mnt/somepartition/files
    browsable = yes
    guest ok = yes
    writable = yes
    guest account = someusername
    create mask = 0775
    directory mask = 0755

What this saying is "Create a samba share on \mymachine\public_files that is viewable to anonymous users (not hidden like user files generally are) and enable it for write access. Anonymous users can access this share by using someusername's credentials. When files are created, make them globally executable but restrict write access globally. When directories are created, make them globally executable but only writable by someusername."

Once this is done, you will need to create a smbpassword, per your question. To do this, ensure first that the user exists within your server. If the user doesn't, create it:

sudo adduser someusername

Once the user exists, create a samba login:

sudo smbpasswd -a someusername

A couple of things to keep in mind: the directory that public_files points to will need to be READ accessible to someusername. Make sure you set the permissions correctly. If the directory is owned by you but still want to make them available, add someusername to a common group and then change the group ownership.