I attempted to export a SAMBA share from Fedora Core 5 (FC5) to a Windows server, and had all kinds of problems. I'm using the KDE control center to do all the configuration.
Here were some of the messages I was getting; from NT:
“No network provider accepted the given path.”
From /var/log/samba, with logging set to level 4:
“NT_STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_NAME”
“smb signing is incompatible with share level security”
“refusing connection to dfs proxy share”
I'm using samba server version 3.0.23 and Fedora Core 5 kernel 2.6.17-1.
Well, after several hours, I solved the problem. The bugger was, it was multiple points of failure, by which I mean misconfiguration. This was a tough nut to crack. I've googled around and found lots of references, but each time the folks only seemed to solve a part of it.
I wrote this text to hopefully guide others to a solution. There was no one-stop-shopping to solve this problem.
Here's what I did, but not necessarily in order or very thoroughly documented. You have to understand, I was trying this, trying that, and wasn't extremely careful, but in the end, it works.
Note, between every iteration, call “/etc/init.d/smb restart,” then go into Windows and refresh your Explorer by clicking just after your share name in the URL bar and hitting “enter.”
Firstly, use “user security”, not share or domain or anything else.
In the advanced screen, under VFS, uncheck the “host msdfs” option. I got some dfs proxy error until I unchecked that box.
Need to add a “root” user to the user password. Do “smbpasswd -a root”. Also do one to add your own local username. If your name is “rfink”, do “smbpasswd -a rfink”. Make sure the password is the same as your Windows NT password.
Make sure your password is the same as your Windows NT password; did I say that already? Largely this is because Windows NT won't give you a chance to enter a different user name or password. (Early on in the process, it asked me for a username, but didn't in later hours, because one side or the other must be caching it.)
Must have a user map to convert
the NT names into valid UNIX names on the local box; under Advanced,
Security, Username, set “Username map” to /etc/samba/smbusers.
Edit the smbusers file and add entries of the form:
rfink =
FinkRuss MyNTDomain\FinkRuss
Use “force users” option when setting your shares to your username, e.g., “rfink”.
Your UNIX user account must own the share you wish to export. For instance, if I have a mount point “/mnt/c”, I must own that share. (Use the uid=500 gid=500 where 500 matches “rfink” in /etc/passwd if you are sharing a local mount).