Cant make get WD TV Media Player to connect to Samba/SMB after upgrade from 3 to 4; maybe IPC$ issue?

Question

Upgrading my home server from CentOS version 6 to 7, also gave an upgrade of Samba from version 3.6.9-169.el6_5 to version 4.6.2.

When doing this, I ported the /etc/samba/smb.conf file directly, which worked fine for Samba shares to my PC.

However, my WD TV Media Player can't connect to the Samba shares, which otherwise worked fine before.

The active and relevant part of my smb.conf file is this:

[global]
    workgroup = MY
    server string = %h
    netbios name = MYSRV
    hosts allow = 127. 192.168.12. 192.168.13.
    auto services = global movie
    guest ok = yes
    guest account = movie
    browseable = yes
    wins support = yes
    security = user
    passdb backend = tdbsam
    load printers = yes
    cups options = raw

[movie]
    comment = Movie all files
    path = /media/movie
    public = yes
    writable = yes
    valid users = @users, movie, nobody
    create mask = 0644
    directory mask = 0755
    printable = no

The CentOS 6 server with Samba version 3.6.9-169.el6_5 gives this output from smbstatus after successful connecting to the shares:

Samba version 3.6.9-169.el6_5
PID     Username      Group         Machine                        
-------------------------------------------------------------------
3158      movie         nobody        192.168.13.57 (192.168.13.57)
3153      movie         nobody        mymh7         (192.168.13.57)

Service      pid     machine       Connected at
-------------------------------------------------------
barn         3158   192.168.13.57  Sun Mar 25 12:57:37 2018
IPC$         3149   mymh7          Sun Mar 25 12:56:51 2018
movie        3158   192.168.13.57  Sun Mar 25 12:57:37 2018
IPC$         3153   mymh7          Sun Mar 25 12:57:36 2018
IPC$         3150   mymh7          Sun Mar 25 12:56:51 2018

No locked files

The CentOS 7 server with Samba version 4.6.2 gives this output from smbstatus after failing to connect to the shares:

Samba version 4.6.2
PID     Username     Group        Machine                                   Protocol Version  Encryption           Signing              
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7268    movie        nobody       mymh7 (ipv4:192.168.13.57:41824)            NT1               -                    -                    
7267    movie        nobody       192.168.13.57 (ipv4:192.168.13.57:56874)    NT1               -                    -                    
7266    movie        nobody       192.168.13.57 (ipv4:192.168.13.57:56873)    NT1               -                    -                    

Service      pid     Machine       Connected at                     Encryption   Signing     
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IPC$         7266    192.168.13.57  Sun Mar 25 12:01:58 PM 2018 CEST -            -           
IPC$         7267    192.168.13.57  Sun Mar 25 12:01:58 PM 2018 CEST -            -           
IPC$         7268    mymh7          Sun Mar 25 12:02:01 PM 2018 CEST -            -           

Any ideas of what can be wrong, or suggestions for what I should try?

Answer 1

Appeared that WD (Western Digital) TV Media Player (Live gen. 3) uses NTLMv1 and/or Lanman password authentication, and this is default disabled in Samba version 4.6.2. So I had to enable at least NTLM authentication it in the smb.conf file using:

ntlm auth = yes

For information, then the debug process was to enable detailed logging in the smb.conf file using:

log level = 3

And then the /var/log/samba/192.168.13.57.log file listed:

...
[2018/03/31 17:05:42.238771,  2] ../libcli/auth/ntlm_check.c:423(ntlm_password_check)
  ntlm_password_check: NTLMv1 passwords NOT PERMITTED for user movie
[2018/03/31 17:05:42.238821,  3] ../libcli/auth/ntlm_check.c:442(ntlm_password_check)
  ntlm_password_check: Lanman passwords NOT PERMITTED for user movie
[2018/03/31 17:05:42.238913,  3] ../libcli/auth/ntlm_check.c:588(ntlm_password_check)
  ntlm_password_check: LM password and LMv2 failed for user movie, and NT MD4 password in LM field not permitted
[2018/03/31 17:05:42.239469,  2] ../source3/auth/auth.c:315(auth_check_ntlm_password)
  check_ntlm_password:  Authentication for user [movie] -> [movie] FAILED with error NT_STATUS_WRONG_PASSWORD
...

Answer 2

I had this same issue and fixed it by adding this line to my smb.conf in the public section:

server min protocol = NT1

This re-enables SMBv1 which is what the WD TV Live device needs. The newer versions of samba did away with anything below SMBv2 for security reasons so make the choice for yourself if you want to turn it back on.

Answer 3

It is possible that you also have to add:

server min protocol = NT1

It depends on the Samba version you use.