Setup Samba Shares With FreeNAS - A 5 Minute Tutorial

After reading some tweets between Beq and Freenas on Twitter recently, I thought it would be a great idea to write a quick tutorial on setting up a basic Samba (CIFS/SMB) tutorial for anonymous access. I had gone through similar problems when I first started using FreeNAS. The process is very similar the one I used for Data Recovery Using FreeNAS. Note that I am running this setup and keeping it on as a LiveCD setup. All these settings will be lost upon a reboot. You can save the settings to a Floppy or a USB drive.


Bootup and Install

• I Boot up with the LiveCD.
• Configure the IP address via DHCP (option 2)
  
• I go to another machine for the WebGUI to do additional configuration.
  
• From the WebGUI, I login with the default admin/freenas account.
• Then I setup the Disks - steps are below.
  

Adding the Disk

• Disks - Management - Add Choose the Disk.
• In my case it is ad8.
• I give the description as HD (Hard Disk)
• I leave everything else default, leaving the Preformatted file system as UFS (GPT and Soft Updates). Click Save
  
• Now Click Apply Changes
• You should see the status of the Disk as Online

Format The Disk

• If this is a new disk (to FreeNAS) you should format it.
• Choose the Disk you setup in the above step
• Choose the File System.
• Give it a Label (optional)
• Click Format Disk

Mount the Disk

• Disks - Mount Point - Management - Add mount point
• I Choose the Disk I configured above
• I choose EFI GPT as the partition, since I am using the entire disk for data storage.
• Filesystem: I choose UFS
• Sharename: I call it Windows. You can call it anything you want.
• I leave everything else as the default and click Add
  
• save the changes by clicking Apply Changes
• Status should go to OK
  

Setup Samba (CIFS/SMB) Services

• Go to Services - CIFS/SMB
• On the Settings tab, make sure you check off Enable
• Choose Anonymous for Authentication (you can change this once you get it all working)
  
• Give it a NetBIOS name and Workgroup of your choosing
• I left all settings as the default. Click Save and Restart
  

Setup Samba (CIFS/SMB) Shares

• On the Shares tab, Click on the Add Share icon (plus sign)
• Give your Samba Share a name and put a comment in so you know what it is.
• Choose the Path. This should be /mnt/mountpoint. Where the mountpoint is what you setup in the Mount The Disk step's Share name. In my case it would be called Windows. THIS STEP IS VERY IMPORTANT!
  
• Click the Add button.
• Click Apply changes

From Your windows machine, or any machine that can access a Samba share, I go to the folder \\freenasIP - You should see your available Samba share now.

I know all the mounts and share names and all the other steps can be very confusing if you have never set up FreeNAS before. It was confusing to me until I did it a few times. I hope this has helped you get your FreeNAS system up and running. Let me know your thoughts on this process and if this tutorial helped you at all. To read more about FreeNAS see My other FreeNAS posts:

• 9 Great Things About FreeNAS
• 9 Reasons To Use FreeNAS At Work
• 11 FreeNAS Tips
• Data Recovery Using FreeNAS

You can buy the Learning FreeNAS: Configure and manage a network attached storage solution book if you are looking for a good reference book.

For additional links to tips and tricks follow me on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to FrugalNYC or FrugalTech in any way (guest posts, articles, ideas, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else), feel free to contact me via email. Click here to add this to your RSS reader or Subscribe to FrugalTech by Email.

9 Reasons To Use FreeNAS At Work

Several days ago I wrote about 9 Great Things About FreeNAS. These were some ideas and uses for FreeNAS in general, whether it's at home or work. Here are some more reasons you may want to use FreeNAS, at work!

1. Use existing old hardware - This will run well with your boss.
2. You don't need hardware - Run it as a VM, saves you from having to use any new or old computing equipment!
3. No Monitor needed - Once configured, you probably won't touch the physical box again!
4. Speed up networking - By using it as a Windows Workgroup Master Browser, you can turn off the Browser service on your workstations. Which should reduce network traffic in a workgroup setting.
5. No user accounts to regulate as a public share - One of my favorite features, create one box for anonymous access so you have access to often accessed installs and drivers.
6. Can integrate with AD - I have not tried this yet, but I see an option to integrate it with AD accounts!
7. Can function as a standalone server - You don't need Active Directory or anything else to make this functional.
8. Quick setup for projects - You can set one up as a project server, once over you can easily turn it off.
9. Run it from LiveCD - You don't even need to install it (if you don't need to reboot and save settings). It can function very well off a LiveCD. I have one system running this way for some time now!

Do you use FreeNAS? What features do you like best? Share your thoughts and comments. You can get the current iso of FreeNAS here. Do you have other useful resources for FreeNAS?

You can buy the Learning FreeNAS: Configure and manage a network attached storage solution book if you are looking for a good reference book.

For additional links to frugal tips and tricks follow me on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to FrugalNYC or FrugalTech in any way (guest posts, articles, ideas, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else), feel free to contact me via email. Click here to add this to your RSS reader or Subscribe to FrugalTech by Email.