[Samba] share without authentication - how?

[Michael Heydon]

Tim Bates wrote:
> Dexter Filmore wrote:
>> Wanna share a dir to win clients so that they can just map it locally 
>> without providing any password or login or whatsover.
>> So far I'm at:
>>
>> [foo]
>>         path = /mnt/foo
>>         guest ok = Yes
>>         security = share
>>         public = yes
>>         writable = yes
>>         force user = dexter
>>
>> Still won't work, asks for auth.
>>
>>
>>   
> Try it without the force user line. It's probably forcing everyone to 
> use that username, which then requires a password.
> Also, check the actual filesystem permissions if you haven't already.
>
> TB

I don't believe that force user would be a problem, it doesn't affect 
the username used for auth, only the effective UID when accessing the 
file system.

Security = share should be a global option rather than inside the share 
definition (actually IMHO "security = share" shouldn't be anywhere, you 
should use user level security). I'm assuming you don't have security = 
share defined in the global section as well, in which case you are 
probably using user level security at the moment.

If you use user level security, you will need a map to guest line, 
probably something like "map to guest = bad user" although you may need 
"bad password" if your clients have the same username as the server and 
still want guest access.

Also public and guest ok are the same thing, it won't hurt having them 
both, but it's pointless.

If setting up your security/map to guest properly doesn't fix it, post 
your entire smb.conf (minus comments) as well as something showing the 
file system permissions for /mnt/foo.

-- Michael Heydon