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[VU+ Ultimo4K] Samba advice

thecaretaker

thecaretaker

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Can somebody help me out with some Samba questions?

I use my TV (Panasonic) to connect to my VU Ultimo4k hard drive and a hard drive attached to my router. The TV sees and connects to the routers hard drive every time I turn the TV on (out of standby) without issue. But I do struggle to get the Vu Ultimo4K hard drive to register.

Q1. Should Samba work straight out the box? I mean install it from Network/Utilities, start the service and should it just work.

I do have a working copy of the Samba which I keep on my PC but every time I update Vix, I have to use putty and Init 4 (ftp and delete the etc/Samba folder and replace it with my stored copy) and then init 3. However, I have to reboot the Ultimo4K, unplug the TV (sometimes several times) before the TV can register the Ultimo4K. Once working, it does seem to stay connected (although if I use iplayer/Britbox etc on the TV the TV often forgets the settings and I have to unplug it and start it up again).

Looking at the (kind-of working) Samba files I have on my PC, they are slightly different than those on a fresh Vix install. I've tried all sorts of adjustments to get the newer Samba files to work but can't get the TV to even see the Ultimo4K.

I don't allow access to my VU Ultimo4K from the internet, just internal LAN, so...

Q2. What do I need to do (what files to adjust) to get my TV to connect to Samba on a new install of Vix?

I'll attach a copy of the Samba files I use.

View attachment samba.zip

When I say update Vix, I always do a clean install of Vix (from the download page on this website), ftp it to the imagebackup folder and always do a system and plug-in restore.

Any suggestions to get my TV to recognise the Ultimo4K as it does the routers hard drive would be appreciated.
 
Last edited:
These are the Samba files found on a clean install of Vix which I can't get to work. Compared to my existing files, there is no smb-insecure.conf or smb-secure.conf files in the etc/Samba/Distro folder. The smb_global.conf looks slightly different from the original too.

View attachment Latest samba.zip

What do I need to do to get the latest Samba working?
 
This sounds like a very similar problem I came across a few weeks ago, I am not using OpenViX myself but my own build and from the OEA 5.1 branch so when it comes to Samba will be a very similar setup. It seems to me (and could be wrong about this part, never really used Samba server until a few weeks back) but in the past when you set a root user password that also triggers the password being set for the root user in Samba, now this no longer seems to be the case, perhaps down to root user password being set before Samba server is installed and so the Samba root user ends up with the default 'nopassword' and you can never connect as a client or maybe it does allow you to connect but as anonymous? Not entirely sure what's not talking to what and where as I didn't look to much more into that, my objected was I wanted to set a password anyway for the Samba root user...

Anyway, what I found was this:
If you take a look inside the smbpasswd file here: /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd

Inside that by default you should see the two default Samba users, root and kids, the defaults for both users are no password, so for example the root (and kids) user will look something like this:
root:0:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:NOPASSWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:
kids:500:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:NOPASSWORDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX:

Root user I think will give access to root file system on the receiver and any HDD connected and kids user just to the HDD. Anyway the above is literally telling you no password is set to either user, so now a simple command from Telnet or SSH (whichever you use) to set the Samba server only user password:

For Samba root user:
Code: 
smbpasswd -a root

This will prompt you to enter a password and then again to confirm:
Code: 
New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:

Once set that should be it, I found it works straight away but you might want to give the receiver a reboot and/or any devices you want to connect with as a client just to be sure.
 
I had high hopes for your suggestion Amiko as it sounded very feasible, but it still won't connect. I tried twice and it does indeed update the root line in the smbpasswd file, but I can't register it on the TV. Tells me "Connection failed. Check your settings and retry"

What I did was:

Code: 
Init 4

smbpasswd -a root

New SMB password: XXXX
Retype new SMB password: XXXX

Init 3

I then rebooted the VU+.

Thinking it maybe due to the remembered setting on the TV, I deleted the setting just in case and rebooted TV and VU+. The TV couldn't even see the VU+ to add it to the list of available servers, so I was unable to register it.


I tried manually adding the details on the TV, but still nothing. The TV just isn't seeing the VU+. I checked that Samba was running and it was.

Thanks for your suggestion. :eek:
 
One thing that I had to do was to stop it disabling netbios. So in the smb-user.conf add this line in the [global] section
Code: 
disable netbios = No
 
lincsat said:
One thing that I had to do was to stop it disabling netbios. So in the smb-user.conf add this line in the [global] section
Code: 
disable netbios = No
Click to expand...

I think it`s stupid that default is Yes.
 
lincsat said:
One thing that I had to do was to stop it disabling netbios. So in the smb-user.conf add this line in the [global] section
Code: 
disable netbios = No
Click to expand...

I've tried your suggestion but still no joy. I'll have to continue adding the entire Samba folder which does work, I just can't work out why the most recent version doesn't want to work for me. I've even tried replacing each of the older file individually to see if it a specific file that is stopping it from working.

Looking at the differences in the files, in distro/smb_branding.conf

Newer version
Code: 
[global]
        server string = OpenViX %h network services

My older version
Code: 
[global]
        server string = OpenViX %h network services

#       include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-secure.conf
        include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-insecure.conf

In the distro folder, I do have smb-secure.conf and smb-unsecure.conf files

smb-secure.conf
Code: 
[global]
        # True user level security:
        # - Degrade guests to "nobody" rather than escalating them to "root"
        # - Stop accepting empty (null) passwords
        #
        # Note: This will require you to set passwords using smbpasswd -a
        guest account = nobody
        null passwords = No

        # For more security, disable NetBIOS and enforce min protocol = SMB2_02
        # Note: min protocol = SMB2_02 will lock out ancient clients, like DOS, OS/2, Windows 9x as well as OpenPLi up to 4.0 and VTi
        disable netbios = Yes
        min protocol = SMB2_02
        smb ports = 445

smb-unsecure.conf
Code: 
[global]
        # Effectively remove security:
        # - guests (unauthed/bad authed) escalate to root
        # - empty passwords allowed
        # - SMBv1 allowed
        guest account = root
        null passwords = Yes
        min protocol = NT1

The distro smb_global.conf has a few slight differences as well.

Older version
Code: 
[global]
        security = USER
        map to guest = Bad Password
        min receivefile size = 16384
        use sendfile = Yes
        aio read size = 16384
        aio write behind = true
        aio write size = 16384
        username map = /etc/samba/private/users.map
        smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
        passdb backend = smbpasswd
        idmap config * : backend = tdb
        obey pam restrictions = Yes
        max stat cache size = 64
        unix password sync = Yes
        pam password change = Yes
        server multi channel support = Yes
        passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
        passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .

        # Disable printer support for now
        disable spoolss = Yes
        load printers = No
        printcap name = /dev/null

        enable privileges = Yes
        unix extensions = No
        allow insecure wide links = Yes

        include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-branding.conf
        include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-shares.conf
        include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-vmc.conf

        include = /etc/samba/smb-user.conf

Newer version
[global]
Code: 
        # CVE-1999-0519 and CVE-2000-1200
        access based share enum = yes
        restrict anonymous = 2

        disable netbios = Yes
        min protocol = SMB2_02
        smb ports = 445
        ntlm auth = yes

        workgroup = WORKGROUP
        security = USER
        guest account = nobody
        map to guest = Bad User
        username map = /etc/samba/private/users.map
        min receivefile size = 16384
        use sendfile = Yes
        aio read size = 16384
        aio write behind = true
        aio write size = 16384
        smb passwd file = /etc/samba/private/smbpasswd
        passdb backend = smbpasswd
        idmap config * : backend = tdb
        obey pam restrictions = Yes
        max stat cache size = 64
        unix password sync = Yes
        pam password change = Yes
        server multi channel support = Yes
        passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
        passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .

        # Disable printer support for now
        disable spoolss = Yes
        load printers = No
        printcap name = /dev/null

        unix extensions = No
        allow insecure wide links = Yes

        strict locking = no
        oplocks = yes
        kernel oplocks = yes

        include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-branding.conf
        include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-shares.conf
        include = /etc/samba/distro/smb-vmc.conf

        include = /etc/samba/smb-user.conf

All other files look to be the same.

I'm going to give this a break now, my brain hurts :)
 
tappari said:
I think it`s stupid that default is Yes.
Click to expand...

netbios is disabled by default in most recent Samba releases because it is insecure. Microsoft is also disabling netbios by default in Win10/11, so you have to either explicitly enable it or use a more modern discovery protocol like mDNS. For the past 18 months or so I have just given up on trying to browse SMB servers in my mixed linux/MS network as, most of the time, it just doesn't work (I can see the machines in the browser but can't always get at the shares).

I get my router to allocate fixed IP addresses to devices on the network and then explicitly use the IP address to access SMB - e.g. smb://192.168.0.112/multimedia/ to get to files on my NAS. I also use explicit username and password in my samba configuration (even though it's just on my LAN environment).
 
I've opted to use miniDLNA. It works out the box without any hassle. It doesn't have the random play option which Samba had and some video formats/types don't work, but I've converted those that didn't to .mkv and it does the same job now. Shame about Samba, but at least I won't have to mess about with SSH and replacing the Samba files each time there is a Vix update.
 
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