Sharing folders between Ubuntu computers fails

Question

I am attempting to share files between two computers running 11.10. I'm using the built-in samba sharing. When I try to mount the files on another computer it says "Failed to mount Windows share". I have no clue how to get this working. Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Have a read through the Ubuntu Documentation page for setting up Samba File Server.

It's pretty comprehensive and should give you all the answers you need.

Answer 2

I had a similar issue after upgrading to 11.10, my access t0 samba share was using a DNS alias. workaround was to use the real hostname; may be a bug with smbclient.

Answer 3

There is no point using Samba to share files between Linux machines! Samba is meant for accessing Windows network shares and services.

Use sshfs instead, there is no setup necessary at all:

sudo apt-get install sshfs

Mount the remote filesystem with

sshfs user@host:/path /local/mount/point

and unmount with

fusermount -u /local/mount/point