I have noticed Ubuntu has several mechanisms to share folders with other machines on a network:
-
For example, if I am in
Nautilus
(the file manager), I can right click on a folder, go toProperties
, and then go to the tabShare
and activateShare this folder
. -
I can also install
samba
, edit the file/etc/samba/smb.conf
to enable access to a specific folder and start the service.
I noticed that if I use both approaches simultaneously to enable access to the same folder, I can actually see two links to the same folder on Explorer when I access my machine through a network path from Windows.
My questions are:
-
What is the first mechanism based on? (is it running another instance of samba behind the scenes? If so, where is the
smb.conf
file for it? -
Why the redundancy?
-
Are there any other mechanisms to share folders?
For reference, this is all on Ubuntu 12.04, from a virtual machine (Virtual Box) from within Windows 7 64.
Best Answer
Both mechanisms are based on Samba. The first time you share a folder from Nautilus, it prompts you to install Samba. The configuration is managed by Nautilus ; you don't need root access (except to install Samba).
Other ways of sharing files...
scp
Of these? I use RDP shares, VirtualBox shares, SFTP, and I mount CIFS / SMB shares on Linux.