Client:
Host:
WINDOWS-BOXWhen I select Browse Network in Thunar, I only see UBUNTU-BOX and an empty Windows Network folder. If I enter smb://WINDOWS-BOX/users, after typing username and password I can browse it without problems.
How do I browse computers/shares from within Thunar without knowing their addresses beforehand?
If the OS in question is Win7 edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and right under the workgroup = WORKGROUP line add this one:
client max protocol = NT1
If you don't have an smb.conf file add the following package:
sudo apt install smbclient
Can you "see" the WIn7 box under Windows Network now?
Notes:
** If you have a Win10 machine in your network you will experience a paradox. With the NT1 setting you will "see" it but will be unable to connect to it because Win10 disabled NT1 ( aka SMB1 ). If you don't have the NT1 setting you will not be able to see the Win10 machine but will be able to access it like you did above ( smb://win10 ).
** In an all Linux network or one with macOS all of them will be visible ( or can easily be made visible ) and accessible regardless of the client max protocol setting because they don't have to use netbios for host discovery.
Actually, server and client both must have these common settings:
[global]
# Samba protocol must match server version
client min protocol = NT1
server min protocol = NT1
## Browsing/Identification ###
# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
workgroup = HOME
Tested on Debian 11 bullseye (client and server).
Find it once, right click, create shortcut, it'll then appear in the left pane in Thunar.
Add shares you use regularly to fstab so they're auto-mounted a bit like the Windows mapped drives feature. With recent distros you'll be using SMBv3 that way which is more efficient and much more secure.
This avoids forcing use of an old, insecure & long deprecated protocol "NT1" a.k.a. SMBv1 can anyone say "WannaCry"? There are lots of other problems with it, which is why Win 10 is pushing hard towards complete removal, it's now auto-removed if not used in the first 15 days post install, I foresee in a few feature updates time it plain not being there at all.
At which point the widely posted bad advice to set client max protocol will thankfully stop working.
Put a post-it on the edge of your monitor with the machine details. Reserve IP addresses in DHCP or use fixed addresses & populate your hosts files if you have to.
Anything except forcing SMBv1.
