[Bug 592610] Re: Shared folders (through Samba) when following instructions sometimes does not work correctly

[William S Gregory]

Yes sir, still seeing it.  Seems to be an issue when you've got at
least two servers on the same subnet.  Tell it to use 'bcast' before the
system default (usually the isp's dns), in each smb.conf; and it works.

There are several potential issues at work here.

My first experience with SAMBA was with 11.04.  After spending several
hours on the Samba website learning about it and smb.  It's clear that
the changes necessary to make it "just work" in a gui browser
necessitate a non-stock configuration for SAMBA.  That is to say,
knowing SAMBA as it was designed isn't enough to understand the Ubuntu
implementation.  This confuses the issue if one is trying to
troubleshoot but has no access to documentation of what they did to make
it work in Ubuntu.

Another issue is the same old tired monster.  The reason why so many
Ubuntu veterans scream the battle-cry: "Do A Clean Install!". Human
error.  Every version upgrade I've done has carried some problem or
other that is most likely due to either a maintainer error in a previous
revision, an error in the update itself, or lack of proper communication
between maintainers (that documentation I mentioned earlier).  So,
somewhere along the development pipeline no one remembers that a smb-
native server uses "bcast" to get what it needs: name-address
resolution.

Funny thing is, I went over 30 years of my life knowing next to nothing
about tcp/ip.  Then my first stab at SAMBA fails.  Less then half-way
through Tcp/Ip for Dummies, and I figured out the problem.  It only took
$30 and 80 pages....LOL

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/592610

Title:
  Shared folders (through Samba) when following instructions sometimes
  does not work correctly

Status in “samba” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: samba

  SUMMARY:

  Following instructions to create a shared folder through Nautilus
  (right-click > Sharing Options > Share this folder, and following the
  subsequent prompts) does not always work.

  For some people, it works immediately. For other people, a solution
  has been found, which requires extra steps.

  I found this a problem across a small network of five computers:
  - one 64-bit Ubuntu (Lucid 10.04)
  - two 32-bit Ubuntu (Lucid 10.04)
  - one 32-bit Xubuntu (Lucid 10.04)
  - one Windows Vista.
  Every Ubuntu computer had the identical problem.

  Other people have reported having this problem. Examples:
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1491092
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1502265

  SYMPTOMS:

  When it works, everything works properly and quickly. But when it does
  not work...

  The shares appear to be created correctly. Using terminal commands, it
  is found that the machines do in fact connect. However, in Nautilus,
  the network takes approximately a minute to respond and then fails to
  find the shares.

  DISCOVERED SOLUTION:

  1. Add the following two lines under the [global] section in file /etc/smb.conf in every Ubuntu and Xubuntu machine:
  os level = 33
  name resolve order = bcast host lmhosts wins

  2. Reboot.

  3. Some people find that they have to experiment with the order of
  items in "name resolve order".

  EXTRA INFORMATION:

  Package versions according to Synaptic (from the default repositories):
  - samba 2:3.4.7~dfsg-1ubuntu3
  - nautilus-share 0.7.2-12build1
  - system-config-samba 1.2.63-0ubuntu4

  REQUIRED ACTION:

  Shared folders should work through the GUI without workarounds and
  fiddling, just as Windows and Mac do. It should not be necessary to
  get onto the forum, search, and mess with /etc/smb.conf. (It took over
  a week for me to discover the answer.)

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
  Package: samba 2:3.4.7~dfsg-1ubuntu3
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.36-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
  Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic x86_64
  Architecture: amd64
  CheckboxSubmission: 5bf569339afeaacf6d8dcc180d0a06f0
  CheckboxSystem: b1865df84255b8716d3bcc269ff410d1
  Date: Fri Jun 11 11:33:18 2010
  EcryptfsInUse: Yes
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
  ProcEnviron:
   PATH=(custom, user)
   LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  RelatedPackageVersions:
   nautilus 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu1
   gvfs 1.6.1-0ubuntu1build1
  SambaClientRegression: Yes
  SourcePackage: samba

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