Samba Server Installation and Configuration on CentOS 7

First I will explain the methodology to install the samba with the anonymous sharing. To install samba run,

# yum install samba samba-client samba-common

It will install samba with Version 4.1.1.
Now to configure samba edit the file /etc/samba/smb.conf before making changes I will make the backup of original file as  /etc/samba/smb.conf.bak

# mv /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.bak

Further give the entries like this

# vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
server string = Samba Server %v
netbios name = centos
security = user
map to guest = bad user
dns proxy = no
#============================ Share Definitions ============================== 
[Anonymous]
path = /samba/anonymous
browsable =yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
read only = no

# mkdir -p /samba/anonymous
# systemctl enable smb.service

#systemctl restart smb.service

Further CentOS 7.0 Firewall-cmd will block the samba access, to get rid of that we will run:

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=samba

[root@server1 ~]# firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=samba
success
[root@server1 ~]#

firewall-cmd --reload

[root@server1 ~]# firewall-cmd --reload
success
[root@server1 ~]#

Now you can access the Centos 7.0 sharing in windows as follows, go to the Run prompt and type \\centos:

\\centos

From a windows machine just browse the folder and try to create a text file, but you will get an error of permission denied.




Check the permission for the shared folder.

# ls -l

drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 6 Jul 17 13:41 anonymous
[root@server1 samba]#

To allow anonymous user give the permissions as follows:

# cd /samba

# chmod -R 0755 anonymous/
# chown -R nobody:nobody anonymous/

# ls -l anonymous/

total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 2 nobody nobody 6 Jul 17 13:41 anonymous
[root@server1 samba]#

Further, we need to allow the SELinux for the samba configuration as follows:

chcon -t samba_share_t anonymous/

Now anonymous user can browse & create the folder contents.

You can cross check the content at server also.

# ls -l anonymous/

total 0
-rwxr--r--. 1 nobody nobody 0 Jul 17 16:05 anonymous.txt
[root@server1 samba]#

3. Secured samba server

Therefore, I will create a group smbgrp & user srijan to access the samba server with proper authentication.

# groupadd smbgrp

# useradd srijan -G smbgrp

smbpasswd -a srijan

[root@server1 samba]# smbpasswd -a srijan
New SMB password:<--yoursambapassword
Retype new SMB password:<--yoursambapassword
Added user srijan.
[root@server1 samba]# 
    

Now create the folder with the name secured in the /samba folder and give permissions like this:

mkdir -p /samba/secured

Again we will have to allow to listen through SELinux:

cd /samba
chmod -R 0777 secured/
chcon -t samba_share_t secured/

Again edit the configuration file as :

vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

[...]
[secured]
 path = /samba/secured
 valid users = @smbgrp
 guest ok = no
 writable = yes
 browsable = yes

systemctl restart smb.service

systemctl restart nmb.service

Further check the settings as follows

testparm

[root@server1 samba]# testparm 
Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
rlimit_max: increasing rlimit_max (1024) to minimum Windows limit (16384)
Processing section "[Anonymous]"
Processing section "[secured]"
Loaded services file OK.
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE
Press enter to see a dump of your service definitions <--ENTER

[global]
 netbios name = CENTOS
 server string = Samba Server %v
 map to guest = Bad User
 dns proxy = No
 idmap config * : backend = tdb

[Anonymous]
 path = /samba/anonymous
 read only = No
 guest ok = Yes

[secured]
 path = /samba/secured
 valid users = @smbgrp
 read only = No
[root@server1 samba]# 

Now at windows machine check the folder now with the proper credentials


You will again face the issue of permissions to give write permission to the user srijan do:

cd /samba
chown -R srijan:smbgrp secured/

Now samba users have the permissions to write into the folder. Cheers, you have done with samba server in CentOS 7.0 :)