Ubuntu – Diagnosing Samba

networkingsambasmb

I have set up network shares on three Ubuntu computers in my LAN using system-config-samba. For a while were were able to browse each others network-shared directories, but now it is not working.

How do I go about diagnosing the problem? It would be good to have an easy-to-use GUI.

Navigating in Thunar and clicking one of the computers gives "Failed to retrieve share list from server: Connection refused."

(Answer below.)

Here is smbtree output from one of the machines, showing that it recognizes two others machines.

WORKGROUP
    \\APOLLO        apollo server (Samba, Ubuntu)
    \\ATHENA                athena server (Samba, Ubuntu)
        \\ATHENA\Canon-MP280-series Canon MP280 series
        \\ATHENA\iP1800-series      Canon iP1800 series
        \\ATHENA\print$             Printer Drivers
        \\ATHENA\Shared             
        \\ATHENA\IPC$               IPC Service (athena server (Samba, Ubuntu))

/etc/samba/smb.conf

[global]
    workgroup = WORKGROUP
    server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
    dns proxy = no
    ...

(Answer: I needed to add
name resolve order = bcast host
after the Workgroup line in /etc/samba/smb.conf)

Best Answer

If you followed the steps I mentioned, as your answer says, you problem then is how the naming service is handled as mentioned in How can I connect to a Samba server using its hostname instead of the IP? (Step 4)

In the /etc/samba/smb.conf file, look for the line that says the following:

# What naming service and in what order should we use to resolve host names
# to IP addresses
;   name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast

Uncomment the line that says name resolve order and make sure that bcast is the first on in the list, should look like this afterwards:

name resolve order = bcast lmhosts host wins

Then restart the Samba service sudo service smbd restart.

I recommend reading the link provided because it includes other case scenarios that could happen. If they do, then at least you have a way of solving them quickly.

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