Ubuntu – Windows cannot access Samba server – “not accessible”

The easiest way (in my opinion) to share files across a local network with Windows machines is to use a program I've written called NitroShare. All you need to do is install the application on each of the machines. Then you can simply drag-and-drop files.

Installing on Ubuntu

Simply open a terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:george-edison55/nitroshare
sudo apt-get update ; sudo apt-get install nitroshare

Installing on Windows

Simply download and run the installer below:

https://launchpad.net/nitroshare/0.2/0.2/+download/nitroshare_0.2_win32.exe

Transferring files

Once you have the application installed on each machine, you should see a small box on each desktop:

Simply drag a file on to the box to send it to another machine. That's it.

You are using Windows clients, aren't you?

Well, I don't think it's a matter of persistent connections, I think it's rather a matter of cached credentials on clients. And to avoid this, you'll have to tweak your clients. Quoting directly from this page:

Samba does not control client-side password caching.

Caching of domain logon credentials is a client-side activity. There are registry settings on the Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Profesional clients that control logon credential caching.

• Click Start >Run >type gpedit.msc
• Check Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options
• Check "Interactive Logon: Number of Previous Logins To Cache" (if value is set to 0 then cached credentials is disabled)

Also check.... - Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon - Check "Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon" (make sure that this is either not configured or disabled)

If you are however using winbind, you may also want to turn off winbind offline logon by adding to your smb.conf:

winbind offline logon = false

EDIT:

I've also found this interesting question. You could try to put a few:

net use \\yourserver\oneofyourshares /delete

into your user's autostart on the clients, so that credential are deleted whenever any user performs a login. Take also a look to this answer. It seems that it's possible to stop Windows caching credentials on a per-share basis in this way:

net use \\a.b.c.d\sharename /user:domain\otheruser /persistent:no

But probably for your task it's sufficient something like:

net use \\yourserver\yourshare /persistent:no

or even:

net use /persistent:no

Find the one that best suits your needs and try to put it into autostart (or in the registry run entries).