I currently have a NAS for our household (called Waitress) which is running Debian 11 with Samba using SMB 3.1.1. It is connected to a 1TB USB-SS HDD. I also have an Ubuntu machine which is my own laptop (called Rox). The goal is to use Waitress to store all of the files in my home directory. I am doing this by creating a Samba share on Waitress with the files stored on the external HDD (formatted with ext4). Then on Rox I mount the share at /home/<my username>. I have an account on Waitress with the same username and password as my account on Rox.
The Unix password sync feature of Samba is working fine, and I can easily access the files by logging into my account on Waitress over SMB. The problem lies with the Unix permission sync feature. I don’t understand why my Samba configuration and fstab configuration aren’t doing the permission sync properly, and I am requesting help in this aspect.
My /etc/samba/smb.conf on Waitress:
[global]
## Browsing/Identification ###
# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
workgroup = mclean.net
#### Networking ####
# The specific set of interfaces / networks to bind to
# This can be either the interface name or an IP address/netmask;
# interface names are normally preferred
; interfaces = 127.0.0.0/8 eth0
# Only bind to the named interfaces and/or networks; you must use the
# 'interfaces' option above to use this.
# It is recommended that you enable this feature if your Samba machine is
# not protected by a firewall or is a firewall itself. However, this
# option cannot handle dynamic or non-broadcast interfaces correctly.
; bind interfaces only = yes
#### Debugging/Accounting ####
# This tells Samba to use a separate log file for each machine
# that connects
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
# Cap the size of the individual log files (in KiB).
max log size = 1000
# We want Samba to only log to /var/log/samba/log.{smbd,nmbd}.
# Append syslog@1 if you want important messages to be sent to syslog too.
logging = file
# Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace
panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
####### Authentication #######
# Server role. Defines in which mode Samba will operate. Possible
# values are "standalone server", "member server", "classic primary
# domain controller", "classic backup domain controller", "active
# directory domain controller".
#
# Most people will want "standalone server" or "member server".
# Running as "active directory domain controller" will require first
# running "samba-tool domain provision" to wipe databases and create a
# new domain.
server role = standalone server
obey pam restrictions = yes
# This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to sync the Unix
# password with the SMB password when the encrypted SMB password in the
# passdb is changed.
unix password sync = yes
# For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following
# parameters must be set (thanks to Ian Kahan <<[email protected]> for
# sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Sarge).
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
# This boolean controls whether PAM will be used for password changes
# when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in
# 'passwd program'. The default is 'no'.
pam password change = yes
# This option controls how unsuccessful authentication attempts are mapped
# to anonymous connections
map to guest = bad user
########## Domains ###########
#
# The following settings only takes effect if 'server role = classic
# primary domain controller', 'server role = classic backup domain controller'
# or 'domain logons' is set
#
# It specifies the location of the user's
# profile directory from the client point of view) The following
# required a [profiles] share to be setup on the samba server (see
# below)
; logon path = \\%N\profiles\%U
# Another common choice is storing the profile in the user's home directory
# (this is Samba's default)
# logon path = \\%N\%U\profile
# The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set
# It specifies the location of a user's home directory (from the client
# point of view)
; logon drive = H:
# logon home = \\%N\%U
# The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set
# It specifies the script to run during logon. The script must be stored
# in the [netlogon] share
# NOTE: Must be store in 'DOS' file format convention
; logon script = logon.cmd
# This allows Unix users to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR
# RPC pipe. The example command creates a user account with a disabled Unix
# password; please adapt to your needs
; add user script = /usr/sbin/adduser --quiet --disabled-password --gecos "" %u
# This allows machine accounts to be created on the domain controller via the
# SAMR RPC pipe.
# The following assumes a "machines" group exists on the system
; add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -g machines -c "%u machine account" -d /var/lib/samba -s /bin/false %u
# This allows Unix groups to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR
# RPC pipe.
; add group script = /usr/sbin/addgroup --force-badname %g
############ Misc ############
# Using the following line enables you to customise your configuration
# on a per machine basis. The %m gets replaced with the netbios name
# of the machine that is connecting
; include = /home/samba/etc/smb.conf.%m
# Some defaults for winbind (make sure you're not using the ranges
# for something else.)
; idmap config * : backend = tdb
; idmap config * : range = 3000-7999
; idmap config YOURDOMAINHERE : backend = tdb
; idmap config YOURDOMAINHERE : range = 100000-999999
; template shell = /bin/bash
# Setup usershare options to enable non-root users to share folders
# with the net usershare command.
# Maximum number of usershare. 0 means that usershare is disabled.
# usershare max shares = 100
# Allow users who've been granted usershare privileges to create
# public shares, not just authenticated ones
usershare allow guests = yes
#======================= Share Definitions =======================
[BackupServer]
unix extensions = yes
comment = Backup Server
path = /home/<my username>/harddrive/homefolder
browseable = yes
read only = no
writable = yes
My /etc/fstab config on Rox:
//<waitress hostname>/BackupServer /home/<my username> smb3 user=<my username>,unix,vers=3.1.1 0 0
All of the files in the home directory on Waitress are owned by my user and have read and write permissions for my user and my group. This should let them be accessible from Rox. However, on Rox, the permissions show the owning user and group as root, and rwxr-xr-x permissions. Symlinks also don’t work. I would expect symlinks to work, the files to be owned by myself, and permissions rwxrwxr-x.
