Hi all:

Just sat up one of my machines with Linux Mint Cinnamon and naturally MW.
My problem is, I can't seem to get my Linux machine to connect to my MS network. I've got Samba, but apparently I need to do some setting up to get it to work. Seems everytime I try to do what is suggested to set it up, it tells me to do this or that to one of the Linux files and when I try, it tells me it can't be written to. I have administrator status so I don't understand why it says that, but it does.

Since many of the MW contributers are also very established techies, I thought I would ask if there is a simple way to get this done.
Thanks so much for any suggestions or answers to my Lan problems.

Allen

Having Administrator status isn't the same is it would be in Windows :-)

If the files it suggests you edit (or create) are system files, they will probably belong to the root user and not be editable by any other user. So when, for example, I want to edit /etc/hosts I would do

sudo nano /etc/hosts

If you were already using sudo I'm at a loss to explain it...

Someone else might chip in with suggestions for a GUI-based text editor if you don't like using a "terminal" application. I don't use one, so I can't offer one :-)

Hope this helps...

Cheers - Al.

Yes, it helps a little, but when I type in, sudo nano /etc/hosts, doesn't it then ask for my password?
If so, what do I tell it? I never setup a su password.
Thanks!

Yes, it helps a little, but when I type in, sudo nano /etc/hosts, doesn't it then ask for my password?
If so, what do I tell it? I never setup a su password.
Thanks!

Your own user password is required there...

By the way, if you have a lot of stuff to do as root and are confident that you won't have any disasters (or you are willing to re-install from scratch!) you can get a root session on most Linux systems by doing either sudo su or sudo -i. That gets you a root session within your existing session, starting at the root of the filestore. You can then navigate around to the various places where changes are needed and modify the files with nano or another editor of your choice... When you've finished, simply enter exit.

And make use of ls -l to check ownership and permissions on files in the directories you work in -- editing existing files shouldn't disturb those properties, but creating new files may require that they don't belong to root after all!

With apologies if some of this is telling you stuff you knew already...

Cheers - Al.

No, no, it's all very useful information. I will give it a shot and see how I fare.
Years ago I ran some Unix workstations but unfortunately I have forgotten most of what I knew.
Hopefully this information will help me get things setup. Seems like Samba should have made a GUI to make all of this simple in all the years it's been available.
Seems odd to me that some things never advance and some really stupid things do.

Thanks again!!

Allen

If your issue is when you browse to your MS systems in the File Manager, yet when you try and open or edit a file there, you get a notice you don't have permission, you need to add a couple of statements in your smb.conf file in /etc/samba.

In the [global] section where you should have changed your WORKGROUP to match your MS network, add these statements at the bottom of the section.

client min protocol = NT1
server min protocol = NT1

Also you should add yourself as a Samba user.

sudo smbpasswd -a $USER
and enter your password

Also as already mentioned in this thread, you should include your MS hosts in your hosts file so that they are known to the OS.

Then it should be a simple matter of navigating to your resources on your host and then using the File Manager to Share those directories and drives from the right-click menu to create a Local Share.

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Yes, it helps a little, but when I type in, sudo nano /etc/hosts, doesn't it then ask for my password?
If so, what do I tell it? I never setup a su password.
Thanks!

From the Terminal check your group affiliations. You should be in sudo if you are administrator. Like this:

keith@Serenity:~$ groups
keith adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin lxd sambashare

You use sudo to elevate your user permission level to administrator temporarily for the operation you want to perform.

To get to root level permission you would use:

sudo su

You can always tell if you are in user level or root level by looking at the terminal prompt
~$ for user and
# for root

You can edit any file as root user. Like you would need to do to edit the smb.conf file I've outlined.

If you don't find your user name in the sudo group, you can add it later. Like this:

usermod -aG sudo tom

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Hi Keith!
You are helping me to remember, thanks.
But I still have one BIG problem, I don't know what my su password is.

allen@allen-GA-78LMT-USB3-R2:~$ groups
allen adm dialout fax cdrom floppy tape sudo dip video plugdev lpadmin sambashare
allen@allen-GA-78LMT-USB3-R2:~$ sudo su
[sudo] password for allen:
allen@allen-GA-78LMT-USB3-R2:~$

Can't get past here without the password. Am I just stupid? Never asked for one when I loaded Mint.

Thanks

Okay, just realized that it just wants my system password to be temp root. But, if I want to be total "root", what password is it looking for?

Okay, just realized that it just wants my system password to be temp root. But, if I want to be total "root", what password is it looking for?

The same system password.

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Gotcha!

Getting closer, but still no love. I know I'll get it eventurally.

What is it that you are attempting to do? Is it just to edit the smb.conf file so that it can see the Windows hosts?

If you are still having issues with the Terminal I also would suggest using the File Manager itself to allow editing of root owned files.

If you install Edit as Administrator rights into the right-click menus in the File Manager you can avoid seeing the Terminal and using the Terminal.

You do need to use the Terminal to install the package however.

sudo apt install nautilus-admin

Afterwards, just navigate to any file or directory you want to edit as Administrator, use the mouse to select the item and right-click the item to popup a menu with Edit as Administrator option in the menu.
That will prompt you to input your system password two times and then it will open the standard GUI Text Editor and you can edit the file and then save it as root user with root permissions preserved.

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Keith,

Thanks for all the great information. I'll try the file manager trick next.
Seems that when I am root in the editor, it still won't let me change some stuff and then it doesn't want to save it.
Yes, it does give a reason, that I don't understand and didn't write down, for why it can't save it, but perhaps using
your file manager trick, it will work.

I'm trying to get the linux system to behave as though it is a microsoft system, so that I can easily transfer various files from
one system to another without any interference from either system. I know it's possible because at one time I had an
administrator at my work place who setup my systems to do just that, but sadly he has passed by now and it's been so long
ago that I worked on the Unix systems that I'm not at all handy with it now, but I am getting some of it back.

I sure appreciate all that you and Alan are doing to help me with this and I will continue my ploy.

I'll let you know how I make out as soon as I have time to play with it again. They are predicting very bad storms
across our area tonight, so if is possible, I will play with it tomorrow.
Thanks again,

Allen

I just went back to the OP here and I missed that you are using Mint. So my suggestion won't work because I was referring to Nautilus, the File Manager in Ubuntu.

Mint's File Manager is named Nemo. It doesn't seem to have the similar option. Googling gives me this page which does contain a more complicated solution

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=285354

So you can also install Nautilus in Mint. Then go ahead with the installation of nautilus-admin.

But I don't know Mint at all and I read that switching between File Managers can be tricky because of default Desktop associations. Try at your own risk.

Possible to use caja as a slimmed down File Manager instead of Nemo.

Try
sudo apt install caja
sudo apt install caja-admin

or
sudo apt install caja-gksu

To get Edit as Administrator right-click menu option

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Oh, okay. Thanks for checking into it before I tried it.

Sounds good. Will try it out and see what works..... or doesn't. *:)

Allen

UPDATE:

Currently I am able to connect to a MS networked computer from the Linux computer, but the MS computers can't see the Linux computer.
Still searching for a solution. Can't be that hard to do, just don't have time right now.

Thanks!

Have you made one of your Linux host resources shareable yet? You won't see anything from the Windows host until you advertise a Linux resource.

Use the File Manager to set a Local Network Share of a folder on the Linux host via the right-click menu. You can Share the Downloads or Documents folders for example.

You can make the resource shareable with a password or visible to anyone as a Guest.

That will make those folders visible on your Windows host. On Ubuntu, you see a little green share icon superimposed on the folder icon.

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UPDATE:

Currently I am able to connect to a MS networked computer from the Linux computer, but the MS computers can't see the Linux computer.
Still searching for a solution. Can't be that hard to do, just don't have time right now.

Thanks!

Check out Vina and Linux Mint, I believe back around version 18 they changed Vina and the newer versions don't work as well as older versions of Vina did for networking pc's of different kinds like you are trying to do.

That sounds like a derivation of Vino which is the remote desktop server for Ubuntu.

The OP set up Samba which he is familiar with from past experience at corporate.

I don't belive he is trying to set up a remote desktop from his OP.

But that might be sufficient for what he wants to do. Another possible solution but that is more resource heavy pushing desktop pixels around.

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