Updated Nov 20, 2024
A file servers is a computer attached to a network that provides space for storing and sharing files [1].
A file server may be an oridinary computer or dedicated hardware such as Synology's Network Attached Storage (NAS).
Some file servers are secure (SMB) and some non-secure (NFS).
Samba is a secure Linux file server that will work with both Microsoft Windows and Linux clients. It was first released in 1992. It is a program that implements the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and/or the Common Internet File System (cifs)Protocol.
SMB was developed by IBM. Microsoft's developed a early dialect of the SMB Protocol, they called the cifs protocol. Although not technical correct, now days both terms may be used for the same protocol (Linux cifs-utils).
Samba is a Linux program that implements the SMB protocol.
The best I determine Samba still uses netbios to convert a network computer name to an ip address, while Microsoft has depreciated netbios and no longer uses it in Microsoft's implementation of SMB. Netbios used ports 137 and 138 [3] and broadcast the network computer name and ip address over the LAN every 60 seconds [6].
In Windows 10, introduced SMB 3.1.1
Samba depends on the cifs-utils.
To install Samba and the cifs-utils:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install samba cifs-utils
Add your shared folder to /etc/samba/smb.conf [2][3][4]:
[share]
path = /home/sambauser/share
valid users = sambauser
read only = no
browseable = yes
guest ok = no
Mount and unmount the share as you would a NAS. See mount_Synology_NAS.html.
In leiu of mounting the share, you can install a samba client and access the share via the client. However, you are limited to what you can do via the client.
