Sharing Folders between Ubuntu and Windows XP (Ubuntu)

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Sharing Folders between Ubuntu and Windows XP (Ubuntu)
(2007/09/12)

Sharing Folders between Ubuntu and Windows XP
By Brad Trupp (c) 2007

How to set up a Shared Folder

Open up file browser and navigate to the folder you want to share.

In my case, it is the /nas2 folder, I set up earlier when I added another hard drive to my Ubuntu machine.

Right click on a folder and select Share folder. It is an administrative task so you will have enter your password to continue.

Choose Windows networks (SMB) as your Share through option, unselect the Read only check box, and optionally enter a comment in the Comment field.

Click OK and you are (nearly...) good to go.

Now if you look under Shared Folders, which found using the Systems and then Administration menu choices, you will see /nas2 as a shared folder.

Click over to the General Properties tab and change the Domain/Workgroup (and save) if necessary.

Accessing the Shared Folder on Windows XP

Now try to access the folder on your XP machine.

Easiest way is to do select Start then Run and enter the share name -- for example -- "\\ubuntu1\nas2" -- if your machine name was "ubuntu1" and you set up the "nas2" share as shown above.

XP should find it and ask for your User Name and Password -- try entering your Ubuntu user name and password -- and you will find that it will not accept it. There is still one more thing that needs doing.

One more Step

Wander on back to the Ubuntu box and start a terminal session.

The SMB protocol for Windows workgroups has its own password, separate from the one Ubuntu uses so you need to set it up too.

Assume in this example that my userid is "freddie".

sudo smbpasswd -e freddie

It will ask once for your administrative password since you are using sudo and then ask for your new smb password. The -e option enables your account just in case it was disabled.

Now try again on the Windows XP machine to open the shared folder. Life should be good now.

One Footnote

In my case, I used the Synaptic Package Manager under System / Administration to install the extra packages for Samba I thought might be necessary -- in this case, samba, samba-doc, and swat -- prior to doing the approach shown above. Unfortunately, when I uninstalled them, the shared folders stopped working so I had to re-install the packages anyway.

I am not sure if it was necessary to install these packages at all but there is no easy way for me to re-test my theory without doing a fresh install of Ubuntu -- and that is not going to happen.

If XP does not see your machine and things are not working, then do this step as well, and try again.

This article was written using Version 7.04 (April 2007) of Ubuntu.

Things may be different in newer versions.

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