Over the years I have had many samba shares for the house for tv shows I am unable to watch via tv, and I have them all stored on a Linux server with 4 500GB drives in a RAID 5 configuration. I always use 3ware contollers for RAID on Linux. The reasoning for this is that they are hardware RAID which allows me to move the data from one machine to the other easily, and the kernel driver is built into most Linux kernels. You want to install Ubuntu server with 20 GB for root or / and 100MB for boot or /boot, and the rest of the data in /home. You can change this up, but just to make is simple I put the 1480GB in /home. The next step after you have installed Ubuntu server on the machine is to upgrade the server, and install samba and ssh on the server. Login locally on the Ubuntu server, and type the following to setup Samba.
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install samba openssh-server
If this is your first time using samba you might also want to install Samba SWAT. Samba SWAT is a web interface on your machine that allows you to install manage Samba via a web interface on port 901.
$ sudo apt-get install swat xinetd
Now that you have everything installed you just have to get the configuration correct. I have a basic setup that will get you going, and then I will show you how to configure Samba SWAT. You should be able to get it all working from there. Make sure your /etc/smb.conf file only contains the following config.
$ vi /etc/samba/smb.conf
# Global parameters
[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
server string = Samba
security = SHARE
encrypt passwords = true
[shared]
path = /home/shared
read only = No
guest only = Yes
guest ok = Yes
Save the file, and make the directory in /home.
$ sudo mkdir /home/shared
This configuration will allow everyone to view, and edit files on the Ubuntu server. Only the files in /home/shared.
To change your configuration using SWAT open a browser, and access the machine in a browser using the following url.
http://IPADDRESS:901
It will ask you to login, and I like to use root, just so I don’t have any permissions issues.
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