Access to NTFS directories via SAMBA-TNG Pet from Win XP

[3guesses]

OK, so I have followed rcrsn51's guide for setting up a SAMBA Server on Tahr Puppy 6.0 using the SAMBA-TNG pet, but when I try to access an NTFS partition from a Windows XP workstation I get an error that the share is not accessible.

The Puppy machine (PUPPY) is an old netbook with an IDE HDD with 3 primary partitions. hda3 has Win XP SP3 installed with a single admin user (3g) and a directory \mp3 which I want to access from another XP machine (WIN) logged in as admin user 3g.

I have booted PUPPY into Tahr Puppy 6.0 (no PAE) from USB (frugal) and installed the SAMBA-TNG pet. I have then created user 3g using adduser and then rpcclient (createuser 3g -p <correct password>), edited smb.conf and changed the workgroup and netbios name settings, and then added the following:

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[mp3]
path = /mnt/sda3/mp3
writable = yes
valid users = 3g

I have then stopped and started the SAMBA server.

On WIN, in Windows Explorer I have browsed to Microsoft Windows Network->workgroup->PUPPY where I can then see the mp3 share, but when I try to browse the mp3 share I get the error that it is inaccessible (The network path was not found). What have I not done/done wrong? Is it a permissioning issue?

[Flash]

How many computers constitute this network? 2 WinXP computers and a Puppy computer?

[3guesses]

How many computers constitute this network? 2 WinXP computers and a Puppy computer?

Does that make a difference? There are a few XP machines and just this one Puppy machine at the moment.

[p310don]

Have you tried mapping a network drive from XP?

Go to My Computer

Tools

Map Network Drive

Select a Drive Letter

Direct to the folder or click on Browse -> Workgroup (usually) -> \\PUPPY\mnt\sda3\mp3

Click finish.

If you have a password, it will ask for your credentials, otherwise it should go from there.

[3guesses]

Have you tried mapping a network drive from XP?

Go to My Computer

Tools

Map Network Drive

Select a Drive Letter

Direct to the folder or click on Browse -> Workgroup (usually) -> \\PUPPY\mnt\sda3\mp3

Click finish.

If you have a password, it will ask for your credentials, otherwise it should go from there.

I have tried doing it from the command line:

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net use z: \\PUPPY\mp3 /user:3g

I then enter the password when prompted, but it comes back with:

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System error 53 has occurred.

The network path was not found.

If I edit smb.conf and change "security = user" to "security = share" (and restart SAMBA), when I try to map the network drive I get:

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System error 86 has occurred.

The specified network password is not correct.

Yet I know I am entering the correct password and have confirmed this with the "ntlogin" command under rpcclient on PUPPY.

Networking should not be this difficult!

[3guesses]

OK, so after a bit more investigation this definitely appears to be a permissioning issue.

I have started from scratch (a fresh install of Puppy 6.0 on another USB stick), booted from it, created user "3g" (using adduser and rpcclient's createuser), mounted the sda3 partition and then added an "sda3" entry in smb.conf in addition to the default "pupshare" entry; smb.conf therefore contains the following:

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[pupshare]
path = /mnt/home
writable = yes

[sda3]
path = /mnt/sda3
writable = yes

I can then map drives (via "net use" on WIN) to either share (\\PUPPY\pupshare or \\PUPPY\sda3) IF I do so via the default user ("root" with password "woofwoof"). However, if I try to do so using the user "3g" I can map a drive to "pupshare" but not "sda3" - when I try with the latter I get:

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System error 53 has occurred. 

The network path was not found.

So it must be a permissioning issue. This is how these directory entries look in /mnt:

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root# ls -lH /mnt

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   20 Jan  1 21:59 home -> /initrd/mnt/dev_save
drwxrxwrxw 1 root root 4096 Jan 22  2017 sda3

Anybody any ideas?

ASIDE: I have tried changing the ownership of /mnt/home/3g ("chown 3g:3g /mnt/home/3g") but the ownership remains root:root - is it not possible to change ownership under Puppy [6.0]?

[rcrsn51]

From here:

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# To make the share writable, NTFS and FAT drives need the next line
force user = root

[3guesses]

From here:

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# To make the share writable, NTFS and FAT drives need the next line
force user = root

Brilliant! Thank you very much

Just in the interests of accuracy, the "force user = root" line is necessary even to be able to ACCESS a FAT/NTFS share, not simply to enable write access (which is governed by the "writable = " line).

Thanks again!

[3guesses]

OK, so I have my Tahr Puppy 6.0 netbook working successfully as a Windows file server, but I am a little confused as to what is the best/preferred way of doing this - which of these would be best:

• o SAMBA-TNG pet http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60204
  o SAMBA 4 Basic pet http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 217#853217
  o Samba Simple Management (built into Bionic Puppy 8.0)

I have only so far used SAMBA-TNG (on Tahr Puppy 6.0), but SAMBA 4 Basic sounded attractive from what I have skim-read and I like the idea of using the built-in SAMBA software in Puppy 8.0.

Confused and conflicted!

[rcrsn51]

The Samba4 Basic tahrpup .pet no longer exists. It was moved into the Debian Starter Kit projects.

You can maybe use the Samba4 Basic Control Panel to run the built-in Samba server in recent Puppies, but I have no experience with this.

[3guesses]

The Samba4 Basic tahrpup .pet no longer exists. It was moved into the Debian Starter Kit projects.

You can maybe use the Samba4 Basic Control Panel to run the built-in Samba server in recent Puppies, but I have no experience with this.

Is there any conflict with Samba4 Basic Control Panel if the SAMBA-TNG pet is installed on Puppy 7.5 or 8.0? For example, I think Puppy 7.5 and 8.0 come with rpcclient installed but it doesn't seem to work in the same way as the one when SAMBA-TNG is installed on Puppy 6.0.

[rcrsn51]

Are you using rpcclient in TNG to create new Samba users?

IIRC, the Samba4 Basic Control Panel does this with smbpasswd, which is the preferred method. Click the Users button.

[Moose On The Loose]

Are you using rpcclient in TNG to create new Samba users?

IIRC, the Samba4 Basic Control Panel does this with smbpasswd, which is the preferred method. Click the Users button.

I have been watching the developing story here with some interest. I previously tried to get SAMBA-TNG to work and never did. I rolled back to an earlier version of SAMBA and it did work. That is what I am using now.

I was booting Puppy-528 from CD totally fresh, installing the SAMBA-TNG pet for it and doing what was suggested step by step. Looking back on it, I think the problem may be that something very important is missing from the pet. With the older SAMBA, installing the pet I made onto a clean system always seemed to work. With the newer ones, the XP machine and the Puppy would not get along.

On Windows-7 I had to change some registry items on the Win-7 machine to get it to allow access from anything that wasn't Win-7. I however never ran into this on XP. I may be that later updates of XP got the "feature" that Win-7 had.

[rcrsn51]

I previously tried to get SAMBA-TNG to work and never did.

Samba-TNG is almost 10 years old. Did you report the problem at the time?

Looking back on it, I think the problem may be that something very important is missing from the pet.

That's helpful. Lots of people, including me, had XP working with TNG.

With the newer ones, the XP machine and the Puppy would not get along.

I have no idea what that means, so there is no way to address your problem. In any case, TNG has been abandoned in favour of Samba4.

[3guesses]

Are you using rpcclient in TNG to create new Samba users?

IIRC, the Samba4 Basic Control Panel does this with smbpasswd, which is the preferred method. Click the Users button.

Thanks for that. I don't know how you access the Samba4 Basic Control Panel in Puppy 7.5/8, but Samba Simple Management in these distros doesn't have a Users button. However, the smbpasswd command is exactly what I needed so now I seem to have it working.

The reason for all my recent posts/questions is because I am trying to repurpose a very old, very low-powered machine (CompuLab Fit-PC Slim: AMD GX L3 500MHz CPU, 512MB RAM) as a file-server for a number of (6-8 ) USB hard drives containing video files on NTFS partitions. I have XP installed on it, but it doesn't seem to handle all the USB drives being connected simultaneously (via a hub) whereas I'm hoping [Puppy] Linux will. If I manage to get it working, I might write a brief guide explaining how to use Puppy as a Windows file server.

[rcrsn51]

@Moose On The Loose: I set up a Lucid528 machine, installed the Samba-TNG pet and started the server.

I went to an XP client machine, found the server and opened a share. It worked exactly as expected.

The XP client also opened shares on a Samba4 Basic server, as did a Win10 client.

[Moose On The Loose]

@Moose On The Loose: I set up a Lucid528 machine, installed the Samba-TNG pet and started the server.

I went to an XP client machine, found the server and opened a share. It worked exactly as expected.

The XP client also opened shares on a Samba4 Basic server, as did a Win10 client.

Others reported much the same sort of thing at the time and yet on my home network, Samba-TNG simply would not work while an earlier version did.

At the time I stated the problem and asked for step by step directions which I followed. I reported the results from each step on each try and yet the kind folks trying to help me remained mystified. Eventually I gave up and stayed with the earlier version. There have been changes to my home network since so I don't know if a new test would be at all helpful.

I am still using the 528 with the Samba as I had it in Feb 2015. That was the time when this was ongoing.
The version is Samba_3_0_26.1.1.
Many of the files involved show a Nov 2013 date.