Malarieco Blog

A quick Google will show many ways to to setup a Linux file server running Samba, most of them however don't work! Some leave out important bits leaving you stuck and some will only work with one version of a specific Distro (but of course don't mention this). I struggled for ages getting Samba to work reliably and made quite a few wrong turns on the way. I was just trying to set up a simple Linux file server to store music, photos etc. but eventually found a foolproof (probably) way to do it. The following works and has been tested several times on fresh installations. This is not meant to be a high security setup, all folders are accessible to everybody for read, write and delete. If you have stroppy teenagers who want exclusive access to their own area on the server, then you can use this as a starting point. A few simple changes would achieve that level of security but it is beyond the scope of this tutorial.
You could of course setup a Windows box running file sharing but there are some good reasons not to. Windows would need constant monitoring to ensure updates are installed (requiring lots of reboots). Windows is very vulnerable to viruses so your virus software will need kept up to date. Windows has no option to setup folder security so if you find you need it in the future you'll have to start again from scratch, Windows is not as stable. I setup a Linux server in 2007 and it ran non stop for 3 years. I didn't have to reboot it even when the Windows PC's got viruses. In fact the Windows files stored on the server were infected with the virus but the Linux operating system was unaffected. Ubuntu Server can be installed on any old PC you have lying around, even a 486. There are other reasons too but enough talk, lets get started, if all goes well this should take no more than an hour or two.
NB The following Tutorial assumes you have a working network with a router providing a connection to the Internet for both your server and client PC's.