Using the Samba Suite

  • In Solaris 11.3, the Samba suite has to be downloaded separately:
pfexec pkg install samba    # or run as root (may need to --accept license)

Configuring Samba: /etc/samba/smb.conf

  • No configuration file exists on installation, but an example configuration file smb.conf-example exists in the /etc/samba directory.
  • One can use the existing /etc/samba/smb.conf-example as a template, copy it /etc/samba/smb.conf and make the necessary modifications (need set w permission)

  • smb.conf has 2 sections: global settings, share definitions.

    • Workgroup name should be changed.
    • Confirm authentication is set to user security = user

  • Share definitions

    • [home] defines default share access to home folders.
  • Example share definition
[smbdemo]
    comment = Samba Share
    path = /smbdemo
    browsable = yes
    guest ok = yes
    read only = no
    create mask = 0755

Creating a new directory for sharing using Samba

mkdir /smbdemo
chmod 770 /smbdemo

Create a users and groups for Samba

useradd samba           # Optional, but user for samba must be an existing user.
smbpasswd -a <username>

Creating the Samba group

groupadd smbusers
chown :smbusers /smbdemo
usermod -G smbusers <username>

Enabling Samba

svcadm disable samba
svcadm enable samba
smbadm enable-user samba        # Enables SMB service for user samba.
testparm                        # Tests configuration
  • N.B. Using the above configuration works for sharing files without using legacy sharing commands like share/unshare for configuration.

Legacy Sharing Commands

share                       # Display shares (more info than -A ?)
share -A                    # Displays published shares
share -F nfs -o ro ./share  # Defines and publishes a file system share (NFS)
share -F smb -o rw ./share2 # Defines and publishes a file system share (SMB)
unshare share_name          # Unpublishes a share
unshare -a                  # Unpublishes all active shares.
dfshares                    # Lists information about resources available to the host through a distributed file system.

Miscellaneous

  • Accessing a Solaris file share from Windows Command Line
net use x:\\<ipaddress>
  • Accessing the SMB file share: smb://<ip address>

References