[Samba] Accessing guest Samba shares from Windows 10/11 without hacks

Jones Syue 薛懷宗 jonessyue at qnap.com
Thu May 30 11:47:50 UTC 2024


> Is there a simple SoHo samba configuration that works for W10/W11
> clients? I don't want to use Samba as a DC or anything like that.
> So, are there any Samba options that can be used with vanilla W10/W11
> enterprise installations without altering group/local security policies?

Yesterday a link mentioned that Windows changed 'vanilla' flavor, it introduces
two new security measures in order for protection, turn-on sign & turn-off 
guest access:
Accessing a third-party NAS with SMB in Windows 11 24H2 may fail
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/storage-at-microsoft/accessing-a-third-party-nas-with-smb-in-windows-11-24h2-may-fail/ba-p/4154300

The protection policy disable guest access for enterprise/pro/edu editions,
though not sure whether home edition does so too, it looks like upcoming
Windows release would tend to follow this protection policy, so revert 
new protection like turn-off sign & turn-on guest might not recommended.

Fortunately this link did mention there is an alternate: to replace guest
access with an authentication by a username/password pair (should be a
strong password instead of week password). And the simplest steps might be:

1. PC > Start button > Run > Enter 'cmd' to launch 'Command Prompt'.
2. Input command 'whoami' in the command line. And it would output a string
   like 'computername\username', this should be the same as the credential 
   we just enter while we login Windows Desktop, for example in my case its
   output is 'jones-ws22-62\jones', and 'jones' is my PC usernane.
3. Go to samba server, create a new samba account which is the same as PC
   username, in my case it is 'jones'. Also revise smb.conf to allow this 
   account access samba server.
   
Here is a link to refer more details in step 3, hope this helps :)
https://askubuntu.com/questions/208013/how-can-i-set-up-samba-shares-to-only-be-accessed-by-certain-users

--

Regards,
Jones Syue | 薛懷宗
QNAP Systems, Inc.


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