KubuntuSambaIntegration

Revision 3 as of 2006-11-07 20:29:59

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Summary

Kubuntu should simplify Samba integration for file sharing working out of the box.

Rationale

There are components installed to manage file sharing using Samba. By the way, it currently requires a lot (too much) configuration to work correctly, making it hard for lambda user to share files on his home lan.

This is useless and goes against simplicity, and also complicates the work of the documentation team.

Use Case

  1. Paul has many computers on his home lan, with a router providing internet access via NAT. He has kubuntu and windows boxes, and want to share files between his computers. It is very easy to share files on the windows box and access them via kubuntu, but it is hard to get it working on the other way.

Scope

Kubuntu should focus on smb instead of nfs for interoperability.

  • Windows leads the market and there are no free solutions for nfs as far as I know (only paying ones).
  • OSX is also supporting samba correctly out of the box, making smb the best solution for multi-platform network sharing.

The list of things to be done and softwares to use have to be discussed. Should we focus on using the existing kubuntu components with good default config (Xandros is a good example of good smb integration), or should we look at external other components (smb4k seems a very good and mature product).

Implementation

BoF agenda and discussion

Comments

Samba integration should also provide easy join to Windows Domain as workstation.

-- Kirill Uvaev

After debugging this, the problem with sharing a folder was that the folder was in $HOME/Desktop. The trouble is that this Desktop is created by KDE with permissions of 0700. Therefore when samba uses the user 'nobody' to access the folder it gets a permission denied. It reports this back to the user as a folder not found.

This needs several fixes:

  • Fixed upstream in kde4 to create $HOME/Desktop with 0755 permissions. This is what Gnome does. This has been done.
  • Needs to be fixed upstream in kde3 in the same way. This will be done in the near future but being held off to give anyone a chance to comment about the kde4 change. Chase up with me if this text hasn't been updated by 2007-01-01
  • Needs to be fixed upstream in kde3 and kde4 to notify the user when they attempt to share a folder publically but will not work because of this problem.

-- John Tapsell johnflux at gmail .com

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