Folder permissions and Samba - question

[Bob Latham]

In article <48B6FB71.7010900 at infinity-ltd.com>,
   Mikkel L. Ellertson <mikkel at infinity-ltd.com> wrote:

> Bob Latham wrote:
> > In article <48B5662B.5020109 at infinity-ltd.com>,
> >    Mikkel L. Ellertson <mikkel at infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
> >> Bob Latham wrote:
> >>> Hi everyone,
> >>>
> >>> I want to setup a series of about a dozen folders that each have a
> >>> Samba share associated with them. Then I would like to place all of
> >>> those inside another folder that a super user can access and
> >>> consequently all of the lower ranking shared folders below.
> >>>
> > 
> >  
> >> What are the permissions of the base folder?
> > 
> > I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by 'base folder'.
> > 
> The folder that you the other folders inside of. You normally
> picture a set of folders as a tree - The base folder if the folder
> that all the others are inside of like branches of a tree.

>               | - <Share 1>
> <base folder> + - <Share 2> | - <Share 3.1>
>               | - <Share 3> + - <Share 3.2>
>                             | - <Share 3.3>


Oh right I see what you mean, I think. Please see end of post for all
information.

I had the setup below for some hours and had no problem using the share
from the staff area [manage] but couldn't get the SG1 or SG2 shares to
work. After playing with permissions ie. giving more and more in the chain
hoping to discover what the problem was I suddenly had the daft thought
that there might be a problem with the SG1 and SG2 passwords and that I
really should set them again to make sure.

I tried 'smbpasswd -a SG1' but after taking the second copy of the
password, it said it had failed to change it. Stumped again! I looked back
in my notes and found that in the past I had used a program to create the
smb pass word file from the main user pass word file. My understanding in
my old notes was that the data was never auto copied to the SMB password
file and had to be done by hand after every user was created. I don't know
if that is or was true. I wish someone would clarify for me.

So I decided to copy across the passwords with the command I used some
time ago ...

cat /etc/passwd | mksmbpasswd.sh > /usr/bin/smbpasswd
    
Now trying to use 'smbpasswd -a SG1' gave a permissions error - wonderful.

A little investigation showed that 'smbpasswd' had no execute permission
and so I added that and tried again. Now when you try it the terminal
starts listing user names and group names with "Command not Found" on each
line. Honestly, this is all so hard to do something that should be so
simple and yet again I've hit a brick wall with no solution unless
someone tells me.

Here's how I have it set up...


            |           |                | SG1 (drwxrwxrwx SG1 staffuser)
 NetShares  |   Staff   | Student_Shares | SG2 (drwxrwxrwx SG2 staffuser)
            |           |                | SG3 (drwxrwxrwx SG3 staffuser)
 drwxr-xrwx  drwxr-xr-x     drwxr-xrwx
  root         staff          staff
  root        staffuser      staffuser       


The shares from smb.conf

[manage]
	path = /NetShares/Staff
	writeable = yes
	browsable = yes

[sg1]
	path = /NetShares/Staff/Student_Shares/SG1
	writeable = yes
	browsable = yes

[sg2]
	path = /NetShares/Staff/Student_Shares/SG2
	writeable = yes
	browsable = yes


Thanks for your help I do appreciate it.

I've tried to set this simple sharing tree up and running again and again
this year, spending days and days on it and every time I give up and leave
it for a few weeks and come back and have another go. I always hit another
wall and fail again. I could do the whole thing in half an hour on a
windows server. I wonder if I should give up altogether.


Cheers,

Bob.