Exporting ObjectiveFS to Windows via Samba

This guide covers the steps to share your ObjectiveFS filesystem from Linux to Windows via Samba. For NFS export instructions, see this guide.

What You Need

• Completed installing ObjectiveFS and creating a filesystem on your Linux server.

On the Linux Server

1. Mount your objectivefs filesystem (e.g. on /ofs).

   $ sudo mount.objectivefs <your filesystem> /ofs

2. Install Samba.

   Ubuntu

   $ sudo apt-get install samba

   CentOS

   $ sudo yum install samba

3. Set a password for your user in Samba.

   $ sudo smbpasswd -a <user_name>

   Note: Samba uses a separate set of users and passwords (stored in /etc/samba/smbpasswd) instead of the standard Linux system accounts. This user must have read/write permission to the /ofs directory.

4. Add the following to the end of /etc/samba/smb.conf.
   Note: The last two lines are only needed if you want to use Windows ACLs.

   [ofs]
   path = /ofs
   valid users = <user_name>
   writable = yes
   browseable = yes
   ; The following lines enable Windows ACL support
   vfs objects = acl_xattr
   acl_xattr:ignore system acls = yes
   nt acl support = yes
   

5. Restart the samba server.

   Ubuntu

   $ sudo service smbd restart

   CentOS

   $ sudo /etc/init.d/smb restart

   CentOS 7 or newer

   $ sudo systemctl restart smb.service
   $ sudo systemctl restart nmb.service

6. You can use this command to check for any syntax errors in smb.conf.

   $ testparm

7. For Linux distributions with SELinux, you might also need to allow Samba sharing:

   $ setsebool -P samba_share_fusefs=1

On the Windows server

These steps are for Windows Server 2012 R2.

1. Set up connection to Linux Samba Server

   Start
   → This PC
   → Click on Computer from the top menu
   → Select “Map network drive”
   → For Folder, use: \\<ip address>\ofs
   → Click Finish
   → Enter the user name and password that you have set up

Reference

• Filesystem Mount User Guide
• Mount on boot User Guide

last updated by ObjectiveFS staff, March 26, 2020
ObjectiveFS is a shared file system for OS X and Linux that automatically scales and gives you scalable cloud storage. If you have questions or article idea suggestions, please email us at support@objectivefs.com