Samba advice

[thecaretaker]

Can somebody help me out with some Samba questions?

I use my TV (Panasonic) to connect to my VU Ultimo4k hard drive and a hard drive attached to my router. The TV sees and connects to the routers hard drive every time I turn the TV on (out of standby) without issue. But I do struggle to get the Vu Ultimo4K hard drive to register.

Q1. Should Samba work straight out the box? I mean install it from Network/Utilities, start the service and should it just work.

I do have a working copy of the Samba which I keep on my PC but every time I update Vix, I have to use putty and Init 4 (ftp and delete the etc/Samba folder and replace it with my stored copy) and then init 3. However, I have to reboot the Ultimo4K, unplug the TV (sometimes several times) before the TV can register the Ultimo4K. Once working, it does seem to stay connected (although if I use iplayer/Britbox etc on the TV the TV often forgets the settings and I have to unplug it and start it up again).

Looking at the (kind-of working) Samba files I have on my PC, they are slightly different than those on a fresh Vix install. I've tried all sorts of adjustments to get the newer Samba files to work but can't get the TV to even see the Ultimo4K.

I don't allow access to my VU Ultimo4K from the internet, just internal LAN, so...

Q2. What do I need to do (what files to adjust) to get my TV to connect to Samba on a new install of Vix?

I'll attach a copy of the Samba files I use.

63980

When I say update Vix, I always do a clean install of Vix (from the download page on this website), ftp it to the imagebackup folder and always do a system and plug-in restore.

Any suggestions to get my TV to recognise the Ultimo4K as it does the routers hard drive would be appreciated.

[thecaretaker]

These are the Samba files found on a clean install of Vix which I can't get to work. Compared to my existing files, there is no smb-insecure.conf or smb-secure.conf files in the etc/Samba/Distro folder. The smb_global.conf looks slightly different from the original too.

63981

What do I need to do to get the latest Samba working?

[Huevos]

@ccs needs to answer this.

[slacker17]

I had problems on a fresh install on my Uno 4k but following the instructions on post 2 of this thread got it working so may do the trick for you too.

https://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?65154-samba-again-not-working&p=523846&viewfull=1#post523846

[thecaretaker]

I had problems on a fresh install on my Uno 4k but following the instructions on post 2 of this thread got it working so may do the trick for you too.

https://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?65154-samba-again-not-working&p=523846&viewfull=1#post523846

I tried that and other suggestion in that thread but I still couldn't get a fresh install to register with the TV. Samba is running but root/password just doesn't register.

[Amiko UK]

This sounds like a very similar problem I came across a few weeks ago, I am not using OpenViX myself but my own build and from the OEA 5.1 branch so when it comes to Samba will be a very similar setup. It seems to me (and could be wrong about this part, never really used Samba server until a few weeks back) but in the past when you set a root user password that also triggers the password being set for the root user in Samba, now this no longer seems to be the case, perhaps down to root user password being set before Samba server is installed and so the Samba root user ends up with the default 'nopassword' and you can never connect as a client or maybe it does allow you to connect but as anonymous? Not entirely sure what's not talking to what and where as I didn't look to much more into that, my objected was I wanted to set a password anyway for the Samba root user...

Anyway, what I found was this:
If you take a look inside the smbpasswd file here: /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd

Inside that by default you should see the two default Samba users, root and kids, the defaults for both users are no password, so for example the root (and kids) user will look something like this:
root:0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:NOPASSWORD XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:
kids:500:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:NOPASSWO RDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:

Root user I think will give access to root file system on the receiver and any HDD connected and kids user just to the HDD. Anyway the above is literally telling you no password is set to either user, so now a simple command from Telnet or SSH (whichever you use) to set the Samba server only user password:

For Samba root user:

smbpasswd -a root

This will prompt you to enter a password and then again to confirm:

New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:

Once set that should be it, I found it works straight away but you might want to give the receiver a reboot and/or any devices you want to connect with as a client just to be sure.

[thecaretaker]

I had high hopes for your suggestion Amiko as it sounded very feasible, but it still won't connect. I tried twice and it does indeed update the root line in the smbpasswd file, but I can't register it on the TV. Tells me "Connection failed. Check your settings and retry"

What I did was:



Init 4

smbpasswd -a root

New SMB password: XXXX
Retype new SMB password: XXXX

Init 3


I then rebooted the VU+.

Thinking it maybe due to the remembered setting on the TV, I deleted the setting just in case and rebooted TV and VU+. The TV couldn't even see the VU+ to add it to the list of available servers, so I was unable to register it.


I tried manually adding the details on the TV, but still nothing. The TV just isn't seeing the VU+. I checked that Samba was running and it was.

Thanks for your suggestion. :eek:

[lincsat]

One thing that I had to do was to stop it disabling netbios. So in the smb-user.conf add this line in the [global] section

disable netbios = No

[tappari]

One thing that I had to do was to stop it disabling netbios. So in the smb-user.conf add this line in the [global] section

disable netbios = No

I think it`s stupid that default is Yes.

[thecaretaker]

One thing that I had to do was to stop it disabling netbios. So in the smb-user.conf add this line in the [global] section

disable netbios = No

I've tried your suggestion but still no joy. I'll have to continue adding the entire Samba folder which does work, I just can't work out why the most recent version doesn't want to work for me. I've even tried replacing each of the older file individually to see if it a specific file that is stopping it from working.

Looking at the differences in the files, in distro/smb_branding.conf

Newer version

[global]
server string = OpenViX %h network services


My older version

[global]
server string = OpenViX %h network services

# include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-secure.conf
include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-insecure.conf

In the distro folder, I do have smb-secure.conf and smb-unsecure.conf files

smb-secure.conf

[global]
# True user level security:
# - Degrade guests to "nobody" rather than escalating them to "root"
# - Stop accepting empty (null) passwords
#
# Note: This will require you to set passwords using smbpasswd -a
guest account = nobody
null passwords = No

# For more security, disable NetBIOS and enforce min protocol = SMB2_02
# Note: min protocol = SMB2_02 will lock out ancient clients, like DOS, OS/2, Windows 9x as well as OpenPLi up to 4.0 and VTi
disable netbios = Yes
min protocol = SMB2_02
smb ports = 445

smb-unsecure.conf

[global]
# Effectively remove security:
# - guests (unauthed/bad authed) escalate to root
# - empty passwords allowed
# - SMBv1 allowed
guest account = root
null passwords = Yes
min protocol = NT1

The distro smb_global.conf has a few slight differences as well.

Older version

[global]
security = USER
map to guest = Bad Password
min receivefile size = 16384
use sendfile = Yes
aio read size = 16384
aio write behind = true
aio write size = 16384
username map = /etc/samba/private/users.map
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
passdb backend = smbpasswd
idmap config * : backend = tdb
obey pam restrictions = Yes
max stat cache size = 64
unix password sync = Yes
pam password change = Yes
server multi channel support = Yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .

# Disable printer support for now
disable spoolss = Yes
load printers = No
printcap name = /dev/null

enable privileges = Yes
unix extensions = No
allow insecure wide links = Yes

include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-branding.conf
include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-shares.conf
include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-vmc.conf

include = /etc/samba/smb-user.conf

Newer version
[global]

# CVE-1999-0519 and CVE-2000-1200
access based share enum = yes
restrict anonymous = 2

disable netbios = Yes
min protocol = SMB2_02
smb ports = 445
ntlm auth = yes

workgroup = WORKGROUP
security = USER
guest account = nobody
map to guest = Bad User
username map = /etc/samba/private/users.map
min receivefile size = 16384
use sendfile = Yes
aio read size = 16384
aio write behind = true
aio write size = 16384
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
passdb backend = smbpasswd
idmap config * : backend = tdb
obey pam restrictions = Yes
max stat cache size = 64
unix password sync = Yes
pam password change = Yes
server multi channel support = Yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .

# Disable printer support for now
disable spoolss = Yes
load printers = No
printcap name = /dev/null

unix extensions = No
allow insecure wide links = Yes

strict locking = no
oplocks = yes
kernel oplocks = yes

include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-branding.conf
include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-shares.conf
include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-vmc.conf

include = /etc/samba/smb-user.conf

All other files look to be the same.

I'm going to give this a break now, my brain hurts :)

[Joe_90]

I think it`s stupid that default is Yes.

netbios is disabled by default in most recent Samba releases because it is insecure. Microsoft is also disabling netbios by default in Win10/11, so you have to either explicitly enable it or use a more modern discovery protocol like mDNS. For the past 18 months or so I have just given up on trying to browse SMB servers in my mixed linux/MS network as, most of the time, it just doesn't work (I can see the machines in the browser but can't always get at the shares).

I get my router to allocate fixed IP addresses to devices on the network and then explicitly use the IP address to access SMB - e.g. smb://192.168.0.112/multimedia/ to get to files on my NAS. I also use explicit username and password in my samba configuration (even though it's just on my LAN environment).

[thecaretaker]

I've opted to use miniDLNA. It works out the box without any hassle. It doesn't have the random play option which Samba had and some video formats/types don't work, but I've converted those that didn't to .mkv and it does the same job now. Shame about Samba, but at least I won't have to mess about with SSH and replacing the Samba files each time there is a Vix update.