Install samba on Ubuntu

1 Overview

A Samba file server enables file sharing across different operating systems over a network. It lets you access your desktop files from a laptop and share files with Windows and macOS users.

This guide covers the installation and configuration of Samba on Ubuntu.

2 Installing Samba

To install Samba, we run:

sudo apt install samba

3 Setting up Samba

The configuration file for Samba is located at /etc/samba/smb.conf. To add the new directory as a share, we edit the file by running:

sudo vim /etc/samba/smb.conf

At the bottom of the file, add the following lines:

[sambashare]
    comment = Samba on Ubuntu
    path = /home/username/sambashare
    read only = no
    browsable = yes

Now that we have our new share configured, save it and restart Samba for it to take effect:

sudo service smbd restart

Update the firewall rules to allow Samba traffic:

sudo ufw allow samba

4 Setting up User Accounts and Connecting to Share

Since Samba doesn’t use the system account password, we need to set up a Samba password for our user account:

sudo smbpasswd -a username

Note
Username used must belong to a system account, else it won’t save.

5 Connecting to Share

On Ubuntu: Open up the default file manager and click Connect to Server then enter:

On macOS: In the Finder menu, click Go > Connect to Server then enter:

On Windows, open up File Manager and edit the file path to:

\\ip-address\sambashare

Note: ip-address is the Samba server IP address and sambashare is the name of the share.

If you’d like to take your configuration further…

• Samba Server Guide