[Samba] Cannot Write to Linux Shares from Mac

[Hal Vaughan]

First, the full smb.conf is posted at the end of this.

Second, there was a problem with the drive.  It’s running now and seems okay, but I don’t trust a hard drive after any failure that takes it offline.  A replacement is on the way, but I need to use this one now, so as long as it doesn’t die in the next 48 hours, I’ll be okay.  I’m bringing this up because I’m wondering if it’s possible that, as it was failing, it somehow had gone to read-only.  Before things went down, I logged on to the server via ssh and tested it with a ’touch’ command.  It created the file and I could delete it.  So, from my account on the server, I could write to it.

But the problem persists.  After fixing the crash, I can write to the drive from on the server, but I still cannot write to it from my iMac.  If I open the mount in Finder, on my iMac, and right click, no options that required writing (like "Create Folder") show up.  Any attempts to write give me an error that it’s a read only file system.

As I mentioned, things used to work fine.  I specifically set up the two shares so one ("Library") was read-only and the other one, that shared the parent folder that the Library share was in is read/write and requires a user name and password so I’m the only one who can write to it.  Part of that was my solution to make sure only I could write to the share.  If there’s a better way to do that, so I can read and write on Library (for example), but others are guests and, to them, it’s read-only, I’m okay with that.  My only concern would be that I wouldn’t want my iMac, on boot, to somehow mount that share without using my username and password.


Hal



> On May 21, 2020, at 3:08 AM, Rowland penny via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> 
> On 21/05/2020 00:04, Hal Vaughan via samba wrote:
>> I have two Samba shares on the system.  One is intended to be read-only and the other read-write.  Here are the share portions of my smb.conf file:
> Please don't do that, if you are going to post a portion of your smb.conf, post it in its entirety.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> (The commented out follow simlinks is for testing some things - not in use now.)
> Oh yes it is, it is the default.
>> My desktop is an iMac, running macOS 10.14.3.  I can mount MediaShares and give it my password, but it’s no longer writeable.  It was a month or so ago, but now that I’m trying to rip more CDs to the media library, I can’t write to MediaShares at all from my iMac.
>> 
>> In the past, I had the share auto-mounting, without even asking for my password, but now, when I mount the MediaShares volume, I have to do it by hand and use my password.
> Something obviously changed, if not on the Samba server, then has an update occurred on the imac ?
>> How can I make this volume mount R/W from my iMac and what probably changed things so it was no longer auto-mounting or letting me write to it?
> 
> Please post your entire smb.conf.

#
# Sample configuration file for the Samba suite for Debian GNU/Linux.
#
#
# This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the
# smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed
# here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options most of which 
# are not shown in this example
#
# Some options that are often worth tuning have been included as
# commented-out examples in this file.
#  - When such options are commented with ";", the proposed setting
#    differs from the default Samba behaviour
#  - When commented with "#", the proposed setting is the default
#    behaviour of Samba but the option is considered important
#    enough to be mentioned here
#
# NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command
# "testparm" to check that you have not made any basic syntactic 
# errors. 

#======================= Global Settings =======================

[global]

    security = user
    unix password sync = yes
    unix extensions = no

## Browsing/Identification ###

# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
   workgroup = WORKGROUP

# This will prevent nmbd to search for NetBIOS names through DNS.
   dns proxy = no


#### Debugging/Accounting ####

# This tells Samba to use a separate log file for each machine
# that connects
   log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m

# Cap the size of the individual log files (in KiB).
   max log size = 1000

# We want Samba to log a minimum amount of information to syslog. Everything
# should go to /var/log/samba/log.{smbd,nmbd} instead. If you want to log
# through syslog you should set the following parameter to something higher.
   syslog = 0

# Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace
   panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d


####### Authentication #######

# Server role. Defines in which mode Samba will operate. Possible
# values are "standalone server", "member server", "classic primary
# domain controller", "classic backup domain controller", "active
# directory domain controller". 
#
# Most people will want "standalone sever" or "member server".
# Running as "active directory domain controller" will require first
# running "samba-tool domain provision" to wipe databases and create a
# new domain.
   server role = standalone server

# If you are using encrypted passwords, Samba will need to know what
# password database type you are using.  
   passdb backend = tdbsam

   obey pam restrictions = yes

# This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to sync the Unix
# password with the SMB password when the encrypted SMB password in the
# passdb is changed.
   unix password sync = yes

# For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following
# parameters must be set (thanks to Ian Kahan <<kahan at informatik.tu-muenchen.de> for
# sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Sarge).
   passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
   passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .

# This boolean controls whether PAM will be used for password changes
# when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in
# 'passwd program'. The default is 'no'.
   pam password change = yes

# This option controls how unsuccessful authentication attempts are mapped
# to anonymous connections
   map to guest = bad user


# Allow users who've been granted usershare privileges to create
# public shares, not just authenticated ones
   usershare allow guests = yes

[Library]
	comment = Media library
	path = "/share01/Library"
	browseable = yes
	read only = yes
	guest ok = yes
#	follow symlinks = yes
	wide links = yes

[MediaShares]
	comment = Non-guest share for file manipulations
	path = "/share01"
	browseable = yes
	writeable = yes
	guest ok = no
	create mask = 0644
	directory mask = 0755
#	follow symlinks = yes
	wide links = yes