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samba file sharing

konakona

Diamond Member
alright, I think I googled and searched on fedoraforums for like 2+ hours and still dont have the answer. part of that time was spent on getting the hosts to show on the nautilus browser, but I am still having a very weird problem.

From the windows side, everything is picture perfect and works as it is supposed to.
From the FC side, I can see the windows machines and open the folders just fine.
But when I try to open ANY file from any folder, be it a NTFS or VFAT storage type or with/without blank spaces, I get struck with an error message as follows :

Couldn't display "smb://filename.avi".

I noticed there is a whole bunch of google results with another error message starting with the same words, but my case is slightly different. Copying files from the windows folders is not a problem; its just that none of the files cant be opened by double clicking on them.

On a side note, it would be nice if anyone could explain how to make "a shortcut" to those folders on the gnome desktop.

TIA
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Try opening them within the application you want to view them in.

lol sorry for being clueless, but I dont know how you would access the remote drives from the pop-up "open" window. Would I have to mount the drives under local /mnt/ directory?
 
Originally posted by: VanillaH
lol sorry for being clueless, but I dont know how you would access the remote drives from the pop-up "open" window. Would I have to mount the drives under local /mnt/ directory?
How were you accessing the files before? You should be able to do the same thing. Assuming you're using Fedora/GNOME, SMB shares should show up under "My Computer" so you can go through there in the Open dialog. You might need a GNOME app to try that way, since plain GTK or X apps might not "see" the Computer location. You could also, as you're guessing, do a 'mount -t smb blahblahblah' to mount the share as a local file system. Then you should be able to open the files from any kind of app.

I suspect that what n0c is getting at is that this may not be a Samba problem, but a Nautilus problem. That is, the files may be available just fine, but Nautilus (the file manager) may be having some trouble recognizing their file type and launching the correct app to open them. Opening the files directly in an app would cut out Nautilus's involvement in the process.
 
I was previously accessing them by double clicking them after opening the Network under My computer with GNOME. I will try mounting and see how it goes. Actually, I am having trouble auto-loading NTFS and VFAT partitions on the boot, though it works just fine with manual mounting. There is an error in my config file, which I will post later.

EDIT : Igot the mounting VFAT part down, but it wont let me view files in the NTFS mounted location due to (lack of) permission.
 
/dev/hdb5 /mnt/NTFS ro,defaults,umask=0222 0 0
This has been addressed though, both NTFS and vfat drives mount with no problem whatsoever 😀

EDIT : mounting a samba location to /mnt/blahblah worked like a charm!
two questions though, would I have to mount EVERY SINGLE shared folder on the computer this way? I am sharing a lot and that can be very tedious, not to metion a lot of them have blank space in their names. Would I have to go back and change that too? If there is a way, I would prefer mounting the entire computer (or all shares on that computer) onto a single folder.

EDIT2 : the real problem might be elsewhere, I noticed some random behavior with samba. While accessing the FC machine is flawless at all times, going the other way (accessing windows machines from FC) seems less consistent; sometimes it wontn show anything under "windows network" after a reboot.
 
Originally posted by: VanillaH
/dev/hdb5 /mnt/NTFS ro,defaults,umask=0222 0 0
This has been addressed though, both NTFS and vfat drives mount with no problem whatsoever 😀

EDIT : mounting a samba location to /mnt/blahblah worked like a charm!
two questions though, would I have to mount EVERY SINGLE shared folder on the computer this way? I am sharing a lot and that can be very tedious, not to metion a lot of them have blank space in their names. Would I have to go back and change that too? If there is a way, I would prefer mounting the entire computer (or all shares on that computer) onto a single folder.
You only need to do it for each main shared folder on a machine. I can't imagine you'd have too many.

The easy way to handle this is to use smb4k.
 
smb4k? please enlighten me 🙂
lets see, I have 14 folders being shared on one computer, and that number may grow in the future. It would suck to have 14 folders show up under my computer.
 
smb4k is a KDE app that uses a GUI to mount network shares. You can set it up to automagically remount them, as well. It's not too hidden in the prefs (but I'm in WIndows, ATM).
 
Originally posted by: VanillaH
EDIT : mounting a samba location to /mnt/blahblah worked like a charm!
two questions though, would I have to mount EVERY SINGLE shared folder on the computer this way? I am sharing a lot and that can be very tedious, not to metion a lot of them have blank space in their names. Would I have to go back and change that too? If there is a way, I would prefer mounting the entire computer (or all shares on that computer) onto a single folder.
Well, the SMB protocol doesn't really have a notion of "an entire computer." It's built around shares. Graphical network browsers just provide a convenient way to list those shares. If you have that many shares then maybe you can reorganize your shared folders under one large share or something.

EDIT2 : the real problem might be elsewhere, I noticed some random behavior with samba. While accessing the FC machine is flawless at all times, going the other way (accessing windows machines from FC) seems less consistent; sometimes it won't show anything under "windows network" after a reboot.
That's because the whole windows network browsing system is a ghastly pile of crap. Even with just Windows machines it can get messy depending on the network configuration and on what OS versions you've got. In small networks where machines are coming in and out, it's just kind of hit or miss and sometimes just needs more time for the browse lists to get set up. Big networks have WINS servers and other services that help stabilize things.
 
lets see, I have 14 folders being shared on one computer, and that number may grow in the future. It would suck to have 14 folders show up under my computer.

Unless you have a specific reason to do that, it would help if you could consolidate and organize that into a couple of shared directories.
 
Originally posted by: skyking
lets see, I have 14 folders being shared on one computer, and that number may grow in the future. It would suck to have 14 folders show up under my computer.

Unless you have a specific reason to do that, it would help if you could consolidate and organize that into a couple of shared directories.

actually I do, just went back and double checked; the least I could get down to is like 10, you cant physically combine seperate folders for distinct purposes into one under windows, can you? The whole thing would be a moot point if I could figure out how to get the files to open the way they should under Windows Network. In other words, I would like to avoid mounting unless absolutely necessary. Thanks for help!
 
If they are folders accessed by applications, it get sticky sometimes. if not, consolidate away, and make shortcuts on your windows machine to make your life easier.
That will cut down on the smb mountpoints.
 
Originally posted by: VanillaH
smb4k? please enlighten me 🙂
lets see, I have 14 folders being shared on one computer, and that number may grow in the future. It would suck to have 14 folders show up under my computer.

That's ridiculous.
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Originally posted by: VanillaH
smb4k? please enlighten me 🙂
lets see, I have 14 folders being shared on one computer, and that number may grow in the future. It would suck to have 14 folders show up under my computer.

That's ridiculous.
Yeah, but I need it, and its been working just fine with the windows network. I am sure its something trivial, since mounting works without that eror. Again, I would like to see a solution to this without resorting to mounting. I have googled enough and concluded its better to ask some of you people directly, nearly all of those google results are talking about some other issue where you cant even connect to other computers.
 
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