How do I mount a CIFS share via FSTAB and give full RW to Guest

Question

I want to create a Public folder that has full RW access. The problem with my configuration is that Windows users have no issues as guests (they can RW and Delete), my Ubuntu client can't do the same. We can only write and read, but not create or delete.

Here is the my smb.conf from my server:

[global]
    workgroup = WORKGROUP
    netbios name = FILESERVER
    server string = TurnKey FileServer

    os level = 20
    security = user
    map to guest = Bad Password
    passdb backend = tdbsam
    null passwords = yes

    admin users = root
    encrypt passwords = true
    obey pam restrictions = yes
    pam password change = yes
    unix password sync = yes
    passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
    passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .

    add user script = /usr/sbin/useradd -m '%u' -g users -G users
    delete user script = /usr/sbin/userdel -r '%u'
    add group script = /usr/sbin/groupadd '%g'
    delete group script = /usr/sbin/groupdel '%g'
    add user to group script = /usr/sbin/usermod -G '%g' '%u'

    guest account = nobody

    syslog = 0
    log file = /var/log/samba/samba.log
    max log size = 1000

    wins support = yes
    dns proxy = no

    socket options = TCP_NODELAY
    panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d


[homes]
    comment = Home Directory
    browseable = no
    read only = no
    valid users = %S

[storage]
    create mask = 0777
    directory mask = 0777
    browseable = yes
    comment = Public Share
    writeable = yes
    public = yes
    path = /srv/storage

The following FSTAB entry doesn't yield full R/W access to the share.

//192.168.0.5/storage /media/myname/TK-Public/ cifs rw 0 0

This doesn't work either

//192.168.0.5/storage /media/myname/TK-Public/ cifs rw,guest,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777,noperm 0 0

Using the following location in Nemo/Nautilus w/o the Share being mounted does work:

smb://192.168.0.5/storage/

Extra info. I just noticed that if I copy a file to the share after mounting, my Ubuntu client immediately make "nobody" be the owner, and the group "no group" has read and write, with everyone else as read-only.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Turns out that I need to add a local (client) UID to the mount line in FSTAB to make this work. I arrived at this via sheer brute force:

//192.168.0.5/storage /media/myname/TK-Public/ cifs guest,uid=myuser,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777,noperm 0 0

Answer 2

You are almost there. Open FSTAB by using:

sudo nano /etc/fstab

In the last line ( or on of the last lines) place:

//192.168.0.5/storage /media/myname/TK-Public/ cifs username=YOURUSERNAME,password=YOURPASSWORD,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777

*** (this is all one long line)

Ctrl-X to close, Y to save and Enter to seal the deal.

Now reboot by:

sudo reboot

And you should have full control of the network share on your Linux device!

Answer 3

CIFS does not generally have any concept of user and group, so mounting a cifs share will default to showing user and group as 'nobody':

drwxdrwxdrwx. 3 nobody nobody 0 Sep 29 09:00 .
drwxdrwxdrwx. 9 nobody nobody 0 Sep 29 09:00 ..

Since you are not 'nobody' Linux will not let you write to anything that doesn't have 0777 permission unless you use sudo. To fix this, add uid=mylogin,gid=mygroup to fstab and it will make the share appear as if it is your own directory:

drwxdrwxdrwx. 3 mylogin mygroup 0 Sep 29 09:00 .
drwxdrwxdrwx. 9 mylogin mygroup 0 Sep 29 09:00 ..

You now have full control without the need for sudo.

This not not actually changing anything on the server, since the server is not enforcing anything. It is telling Linux to pretend that you are the owner and give you unrestricted access.

Answer 4

I had this problem and it was because the user of the share did not own it. I fixed it with "sudo chown {username}:{groupname} /{share}/{path}" after that I could move and delete files.