[Samba] new user introduction, and a few questions

[Rowland penny]

On 16/07/16 08:31, kendell clark wrote:
> hi all
> My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
> thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
> questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
> distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
> linux, which you can learn more about at http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
> I've been struggling to come up with a default samba configuration file
> that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
> all. The results have been mixed. I'm going to attach the samba config
> file I install into the built sonar images, as well as my
> /etc/nssswitch.conf file. I did have samba working for about two months,
> between my desktop and my fiance's windows 7 computer but after a samba
> update it stopped working. The config file was the same, but I started
> getting errors. They're below. Whenever I try to access anything on
> mellisa's computer now I get either "failed to retrieve share list from
> server: no such file or directory" or "failed to retrieve share list
> from server. Invalid argument. Please select another viewer and try
> again. That last one stumps me because it makes no sense. I thought
> there might have been something wrong with either samba or the gvfs or
> filemanager samba plugin (I use the mate desktop) but reinstalling them
> didn't help.
> My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
> I don't use it myself I'm  strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
> for my fiance a lot, and  I install it on my laptop periodically to test
> samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
> noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
> stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
> installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
> with no problems, prompting for a user name and password. Samba doesn't.
> It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
> option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
> because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
> windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
> themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
> generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them. My next
> question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
> windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
> windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
> disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
> connect with? My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
> manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
> looks like
> $admin$
> c$
> f$
> Users
> The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
> rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply. If
> I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
> anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
> that aren't supposed to be used. In order to access flash drives,
> external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
> explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these? And if
> so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
> come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
> situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
> fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
> linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
> out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
> Thanks for any help
> Kendell Clark
>
>
>

Hi, you seem to running a workgroup, where each computer is a separate 
entity, or as Samba calls it, a standalone server.

Have a look here: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Standalone_server

Your smb.conf looks ok, but I would remove these lines:

    wins support = yes
    name resolve order = wins dns bcast
    local master = yes

The wiki page will explain the rest.

Rowland