Basic Samba Setup On Linux Mint 10

The Samba software lets you turn your Linux Mint 10 machine into a file server that can, with proper configuration, share files with Windows machines, Macs, and other Linux systems. Samba has a vast array of options and configuration settings, but this guide will show you how to setup a basic Samba installation on your Mint machine.
All Terminal commands in this walkthrough are bolded, and USERNAME stands for your username on your Linux Mint system.
First, you’ll need to install Samba. Fire up a Terminal window and use this command:
sudo apt-get install samba
Follow the default prompts to install Samba. Now, Samba uses a separate set of passwords than the standard Linux system accounts (stored in /etc/samba/smbpasswd), so you’ll need to create a Samba password for yourself with this command:
sudo smbpasswd -a USERNAME
(USERNAME, of course, is your actual username.)
Type a suitably strong password (make sure it includes uppercase, lowercase, punctuation, and numbers). Once your password is created, the next step is to edit your /etc/samba/smb.conf file, the configuration file for Samba. Begin by creating a folder named ‘test’ on your home folder; we’ll use that for our test shared folder (you can create other shared folders using the same method):
mkdir /home/USERNAME/test
(NOTE: DO NOT use sudo to create the folder, because then the owning user and group will be set as ‘root’, which means you won’t be able to access the folder using your Samba username and password.)
Next, make a safe backup copy of the original smb.conf file to your home folder, in case you make an error:
sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf ~
Now use your text editor of choice to edit smb.conf:
sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf
Once smb.conf has loaded, add this to the very end of the file:
[test]
path = /home/USERNAME/test
available = yes
valid users = USERNAME
read only = no
browsable = yes
public = yes
writable = yes
(There should be no spaces between the lines, and note also that there should be a single space both before and after each of the equal signs.)
These settings will share the test folder we created earlier, and give your username and your username alone permission to read and write to the folder. Once you have input the changes, save smb.conf, exit the text editor, and restart Samba with this command:
sudo restart smbd

Once Samba has restarted, use this command to check your smb.conf for any syntax errors:
sudo testparm
If you pass the testparm command, Samba should be working; try accessing the shared folder from another computer on your LAN.

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