Sharing External Drive using Samba in Ubuntu 18.04

Question

I have a small home network of 3 computers, each running Ubuntu 18.04. Up until some very recent update I was able to share external drives attached to each of the machines across that network... now no more, and I don't know why. Very frustrated... I'm not a computer wiz at all, and this seems like it should be a very simple thing but I can't get the drives to mount on other computers in the network even though they appear as available. I get a permissions denied error.

So how do I set up a config for this so that there are NO permissions required for an external drive... anybody could anonymously mount that drive on their desktop. Gotta be a way to do this. I've tried all the old tutorials I can find, but just make a mess of things. I kinda need step by step instructions for this issue specifically.

testparm -s results

Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
rlimit_max: increasing rlimit_max (1024) to minimum Windows limit (16384)
WARNING: The "syslog" option is deprecated
Processing section "[print$]"
Processing section "[public]"
Loaded services file OK.
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE

Global parameters

[global]
    dns proxy = No
    log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
    map to guest = Bad User
    max log size = 1000
    obey pam restrictions = Yes
    pam password change = Yes
    panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
    passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
    passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
    server role = standalone server
    server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
    syslog = 0
    unix password sync = Yes
    usershare allow guests = Yes
    usershare owner only = No
    idmap config * : backend = tdb


[print$]
    comment = Printer Drivers
    path = /var/lib/samba/printers


[public]
    comment = public anonymous access
    create mask = 0660
    directory mask = 0771
    guest ok = Yes
    path = /var/samba/
    read only = No

net usershare info --long results

[Anime A-M]
path=/media/jaxes/Anime A-M
comment=
usershare_acl=Everyone:F,
guest_ok=y

info_fn: file /var/lib/samba/usershares/cinema a-m is not a well formed usershare file.
info_fn: Error was Path is not a directory.
info_fn: file /var/lib/samba/usershares/free is not a well formed usershare file.
info_fn: Error was Path is not a directory.
[Anime N-Z]
path=/media/jaxes/Anime N-Z
comment=
usershare_acl=Everyone:F,
guest_ok=y

[Public]
path=/home/jaxes/Public
comment=
usershare_acl=Everyone:F,
guest_ok=y

Answer 1

You have 2 shares named "Public" that point to 2 differnt paths ( /var/samba and /home/jaxes/Public ). Samba is confused.

I would remove the one you have in /etc/samba/smb.conf or at least rename it to say ... [public2].

Then in order to access the [Anime N-Z] share you will need to go back to what I recommended originally: Right under the "workgroup = WORKGROUP" line add this one:

force user = jaxes

Then restart smbd:

sudo service smbd restart