SOLVED: Displaying Linux Share Folder as Windows HDD

[styles2304]

I'll preface this post by saying first that I've searched, though I don't know enough about what I'm asking to know what to search for, I've read through the How To thread and have googled.

I'm setting up a Linux machine to be a file server at my Church. The goal is to have, under My Computer, an HDD listed for each computer to use to store files and for windows to create backups on. In turn, I'm wanting the HDD on each computer to either be a partition on the Linux box or just a folder/directory/whatever. . . preferably just a directory.

Is this even possible?

[oshunluvr]

Re: Displaying Linux Share Folder as Windows HDD

Just so it's clear to me:

You have a linux server and you want it to host a directory or directories for your windows client machines. You want these windows clients to access these diectories as though they were windows drives.

Piece of cake!

First, you need to set up Samba on the linx machine. There's several how-to's out there. Be sure you use a how-to written for your version of kubuntu - 10.04, 10.10, 9.10, whatever...

The shared space can be whatever you want it to be on the linux side - drive or partition.

Then, on each windows machine, you connect to the shared space as a network connection. Once that works - then you do what's called "Mapping". Windows will allow you to "Map" a network share as though it were a drive letter. At my work we use several for different tasks. You may want to configure one directory for each windows machine as private backup space and one directory that all machines share so they can swap files or work on the same document from a different location.

to Recap:
Setup samba-server on the linux machine.
Verify each windows machine can see it's share(s).
Map the share(s) to drive letters on the windows machines.
Have a cup of coffee...

On a side note: Samba will also allow printer sharing so you can have a printer on the linux machine available to all.

[styles2304]

Re: Displaying Linux Share Folder as Windows HDD

Ah! Thankyou! That's exactly what I was looking for. I had everything up until the mapping . . . I never thought that I was missing something on the Windows side of things. Thank you again!