General Information

Creating Samba server file shares (CIFS) and mounting CIFS shares on Linux.

Checklist

• Distro(s): Enterprise Linux 6/7

• Install the service

  yum install samba samba-client

• Enable and Start the service

  systemctl enable smb
  systemctl start smb

• Create a samba user and password

  smbpasswd -a sambauser1

Settings to configure globally and at the share level

/etc/samba/smb.conf

[global]
dns proxy = no
server string = Samba Server %v
 
min protocol = SMB2
max protocol = SMB3
 
workgroup = WORKGROUP
log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
max log size = 50
 
##-- Security --##
# Only allow the 192.168.1.* network globally to any share
hosts allow = 192.168.1.
security = user
passdb backend = tdbsam
encrypt passwords = yes
client plaintext auth = no
 
#-- server signing mandatory : Resolves Security Scanners finding SMB Password Encryption Not Required --#
server signing = mandatory
 
#-- smb encrypt: Requires Win8/10/Server2012 or newer clients due to smbv3 --#
#smb encrypt = mandatory
 
[share_name]
path = /path_to_share
valid users = sambauser1, sambauser2
browsable = yes
guest ok = no
read only = yes
#- Allow only hosts on certain networks only (192.168.1.*) for this share-#
hosts allow = 192.168.1. 127.0.0.1

Config File Help

vim /etc/samba/smb.conf.example
And
man smb.conf

1. Install Packages

   yum install -y cifs-utils samba-client

2. List remote shares

   smbclient -L <remote-cifs-server>

3. Create local directory structure to mount the shares in

   mkdir -p /data/shared/<cifs-share-name>

4. Create root ssh directory if it does not exist

   mkdir /root/.ssh
   chmod 700 /root/.ssh

5. Create the CIFS credentials file

   touch /root/.ssh/.<cifs-share-name>
   chmod 600 /root/.ssh/.<cifs-share-name>

6. Edit the credentials file, add share's user/pass/domain

   vim /root/.ssh/.<cifs-share-name>
   
   username=<user>
   password=<password_here>
   domain=<domain>

7. Create persistent CIFS mount in /etc/fstab

   vim /etc/fstab
   //<remote-cifs-server>/<sharename> /data/shared/<cifs-share-name>  cifs  auto,credentials=/root/.ssh/.<cifs-share-name>,_netdev,uid=<user>,gid=<users>,rw  0 0

8. Mount the share

   mount -a