[Samba] What is needed to allow Network Browsing of the file server in Windows

[Rowland penny]

On 28/09/2020 14:52, Nick Howitt via samba wrote:
>
>
> On 28/09/2020 12:36, Rowland penny via samba wrote:
>>
>> On 28/09/2020 12:01, Nick Howitt via samba wrote:
>>> I am using Samba as a simple file server but I cannot browse its 
>>> shares in Windows Explorer. I do not use SMB1. Am I missing a trick 
>>> or is it not possible without SMB1?
>> No you are not missing a trick, Network Browsing requires SMBv1. 
>> Windows now uses Network Discovery instead, you should be able to use 
>> this instead: https://github.com/christgau/wsdd
>>>
>>> I am using ClearOS7 with the Centos7 4.10.4 samba package.
>>
>> Samba is starting to remove everything to do with SMBv1, 4.13.0 (just 
>> released) has deprecated a few of the parameters required for a PDC, 
>> so can I suggest you upgrade to Samba AD as soon as possible, this 
>> will mean using non distro packages or changing distro, because you 
>> cannot provision an AD DC on the Centos packages.
>>
>> Rowland
>>
> Thanks. wsdd seems to do the trick.
>
> I'm afraid I can't upgrade Samba as I am stuck with what upstream 
> supply, so it is what I need to be able to support. ClearOS itself 
> will need quite a rework to handle an AD/DC as it also does file 
> serving and has a fair amount of stuff integrated with OpenLDAP 
> including a few schema additions. Really the only feasible stage to do 
> an upgrade would be when they change to 8.x. Even then, the easiest 
> route would be to keep going with the current file server set up and 
> run an AD/DC in docker with something like 
> https://github.com/Fmstrat/samba-domain then join the server to the 
> docker domain. You would hate this as it you strongly recommend (for 
> understandable reasons) keeping an AD/DC on a separate machine. 
> Unfortunately the ClearOS concept was for an all-in-one box acting as 
> a router and server. Thankfully I am not a system architect and 
> someone else is going to have to come up with the system design.
> Nick
>
>
You do not seem to understand, SMBv1 is insecure and the first stage (as 
far as Samba is concerned) is to deprecate SMBv1, the next stage will be 
to remove it. Now this isn't likely to happen overnight but it could be 
Samba 4.15.0, at which point your PDC will have virtually nothing to 
talk to, because I am fairly sure that when Samba removes SMBv1, 
Microsoft will do the same.

ClearOS is based on RHEL and RHEL doesn't seem to want an AD DC, so 
ClearOS (and Centos) are unlikely to have one either (unless they break 
with RHEL).

When SMBv1 is removed, you will probably have three options. Continue 
with ClearOS using a version of Samba that is unlikely to get updates 
and has limited clients, switch to freeIPA (RHEL 8 no longer comes with 
openldap and smbldap-tools) or change distro to a Debian based one.

I personally think it is better to decide now, rather than waiting until 
you are forced to make a choice.

Rowland