[Samba] Hello & a query to relieve some confusion about samba

[Jeremy Allison]

On Sat, May 04, 2013 at 04:44:37PM +0000, CCOR58 wrote:
> Hi
> I am new today here and have a couple of confusing items I hope
> someone here o the list can straighten out for me.
> 
> 1. The definitions of the served usershares apprears in more than
> one location; in ubutu 12.04 LTS there appears to be a set of
> defined shares in the /etc/samba/smb.conf file near the bottom, the
> second location appears to be located in the file structure at
> /var/lib/samba/usershares and a possible third area it seems is
> /srv/samba/sharename.
> 
> Which one is affected when sitting it up appears to be related to
> which program one uses to set the shares and/or the server up to
> begin with; if a terminal "net" command set is used, the
> /var/lib/samba locations appear to be used; if any of the other
> config programs or right-click share in nautilus etc then the share
> seems to be defined in the smb.conf file and seems to be located
> either in a specified mount location or else the /srv/samba/
> locations.
> 
> What is confusing is how it gets this way, and how either duplicate
> shares are created or no change is seen when one follows any one of
> a number of the online guides, forums or tutorials. Again each
> tutorial is written based on one's successful attempt to set samba
> up and of course will cause that tutorial to lean one way or the
> other. Hence if one is having trouble and follows one tutorial then
> sees in the network browser either no change or now duplicate shares
> it would be frustrating to say the least.

usershares are so named as they can be added by ordinary
users with no special privileges. They're what Nautilus or
file browsers use when you right click on a directory and
click the "Share" button.

The config tools require privilege (anything changing the
smb.conf file or the registry shares needs to be running
as root).

That's the underlying difference. It's a presentation
layer matter how this is handled on a system.

Jeremy.