I have installed Samba and I can easily browse shared folders in Thunar. But I want it also the other way arouond, to share some of the folders on my antiX machine with others.

So I have added myself to the sambashares group to be able to make usershares and configured /etc/samba/smb.conf to allow guest access to shared folders. On the antiX machine everything seems fine, but other machines can't access it's shares.
And it is not all! If I try to browse from my Ubuntu machine the workgroup where the antiX machine is, I can't access the whole workgroup whatsoever, not even to see the Ubuntu machine's own shares. So I tried to change the workgroup names, and I found out that I am unable to access any workgroup where antiX is... while the others are easily accessible. If I try to browse it with smbc I get an"Access Denied" message. It's obvious that the antiX machine is denying access through samba, but I can't figure out why... Am I missing something?

I thought it could be because of some firewall, but the problem persists even when I disable them all... Or, is antiX using another firewall other than ufw, that I am not aware of?

I am desperate and out of ideas...

franko wrote: I am desperate and out of ideas...

Try mapping your machines IP address in the /etc/hosts file. I have never been able to make the newer samba or workgroup printing work without doing so.
It sounds like you have may antiX set up as the master browser.
Try adding this to your GLOBAL settings

browse list = No
local master = No
preferred master = No

Good luck.

What exactly do you mean by"mapping machines IP address"? (WARNING! Ubuntu user :-p) What should I write there? I never did this before.

Those options in the GLOBAL settings didn't work, either... :-/

I tried to ping my antiX machine from the Ubuntu one, and it works when I ping its IP address, but not when I ping its hostname... So I tried to sniff my network traffic a little bit and I found out that the antiX machine's name is seen as the MAC address of its wireless device (which is my only means to connect), instead of its hostname. Then I tried to ping to it with that name, and it works. I wonder if all this samba issue could have something to do with this situation... But I don't know hot to test it.
Is there a way to manually assign the computer's hostname to a particular device?
Also, I see that on my Ubuntu machine the wireless device is assigned to eth2, and not wlan0, like the antiX one... if this is of any relevance.

Thank you very much for any help.

franko wrote:What exactly do you mean by"mapping machines IP address"?

contents of my /etc/hosts file:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 E4300
192.168.1.111 E4300
192.168.1.101 DELLE6400
192.168.1.105 DEBSTHINKPAD
192.168.1.106 COWPUTER


Where E4300 is my local client name
DELLE6400 is my file/print server name
The other 2 are clients on my network.
Yours should already have the IP for localhost and your local machine.
Map each computer name in your workgroup to its IP address.
You should set up your server to have a static (fixed) IP address so that it doesn't get changed by your router when you reboot.
Likewise, any workstations should have a fixed IP address for the same reason.

Wow! Thank you a LOT! This did the trick, finally. __{{emoticon}}__
Now I can ping the name of the machine and, of couorse, browse samba shares, too.
So this was the last piece of the puzzle I missed. Thank you again! It's always nice to learn something new. __{{emoticon}}__

But it is fascinating how Ubuntu machines communicate between themselves thruough Samba by default, without all these settings...

Greetings franko,

But it is fascinating how Ubuntu machines communicate between themselves thruough Samba by default, without all these settings...

Ubuntu also utilizes GVFS which isn't Samba ...
GVFS = Grid Virtual File System
If I'm not mistaken it's GNOME related ... therefore ... should it mean:
GNOME Virtual File System __{{emoticon}}__
When you share a folder (directory) through your Ubuntu file manager (Nautilus) a hidden
.gvfs folder is created ... in the home directory.
You could do a to see if a .gvfs directory exists.

You could also do a I pray this was informative and helps you in the future.
Take care ...

I have GVFS on both my Ubuntu and antiX machines. I don't really think it is related to the problem I was talking here before...

GVFS is not Samba, as you say, but it is not a Samba replacement, either, as you seem to suggest... It is basically just a tool which allows users easy access to remote data via various protocols, including Samba (see:
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GVFS"
linktext was:"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GVFS"
====================================
). It doesn't serve nor reach shares, it just mounts them, once reached.
I didn't have any problem in mounting any shares, but in reaching the antiX Samba shares from other machines. But that is sloved now thanks to IP mapping.

Still don't know how it comes that Samba shares from an Ubuntu machine are reacheable from any other OS without any (manual) IP mapping...

But thanks for you comment! __{{emoticon}}__

Greetings fanko,

I'm happy that you appreciated my comment.

I never implied, intended nor stated that GVFS was a replacement for
Samba. Please read the first line in my post, I used 'also'

Posted: Wed May 09, 2012 1:12 pm by FreeOS-LuvR
Ubuntu also utilizes GVFS which isn't Samba ...

I was merely attempting to introduce you to the fact that Ubuntu
utilizes other protocols in it's intrinsic sharing methods that
aren't always Samba. From your response, you've proven to be
well versed in GVFS __{{emoticon}}__ ... which is pretty cool.

I'm truly happy immensely that you were able to solve your issue
through IP mapping.

In Slackware when I found out about the host file, I too, was HAPPY!!! __{{emoticon}}__