Setup samba folder shares

I feel like I have done this way too many times this week, but here I am again setting up folder sharing on Ubuntu.

Installing the packages is easy enough: sudo apt-get install cifs-utils samba

After running that, you’ll need to make a user for Samba share access. Yes, I understand, you already have a user account that’s perfectly valid. In order to use it though, you’ll need to make a Samba account too. Because one wasn’t good enough. Run sudo smpasswd -a username where username is your user account’s name. So for instance, I would run sudo smbpasswd -a ryan because that’s my account. Then you can either add the same password (my suggestion) or be crazy and pick a different one.

From there, you’ll need to Ubuntu UI (and whatever they call Nautilus these days) to make the share. I haven’t figured out the method for making shares the terminal. Right click on any folder and go to properties, share and then: share this folder and allow others to create and delete files in this folder. Finally, create share.

You’re all set.