12.1 Features and Benefits

Samba offers a lot of flexibility in file system access management. These are the key access control facilities present in Samba today:

S AMBA A CCESS C ONTROL F ACILITIES

• UNIX File and Directory Permissions

  Samba honors and implements UNIX file system access controls. Users who access a Samba server will do so as a particular MS Windows user. This information is passed to the Samba server as part of the logon or connection setup process. Samba uses this user identity to validate whether or not the user should be given access to file system resources (files and directories). This chapter provides an overview for those to whom the UNIX permissions and controls are a little strange or unknown.

• Samba Share Definitions

  In configuring share settings and controls in the smb.conf file, the network administrator can exercise overrides to native file system permissions and behaviors. This can be handy and convenient to effect behavior that is more like what MS Windows NT users expect but it is seldom the best way to achieve this. The basic options and techniques are described herein.

• Samba Share ACLs

  Just like it is possible in MS Windows NT to set ACLs on shares themselves , so it is possible to do this in Samba. Few people make use of this facility, yet it remains on of the easiest ways to affect access controls (restrictions) and can often do so with minimum invasiveness compared with other methods .

• MS Windows ACLs through UNIX POSIX ACLs

  The use of POSIX ACLs on UNIX/Linux is possible only if the underlying operating system supports them. If not, then this option will not be available to you. Current UNIX technology platforms have native support for POSIX ACLs. There are patches for the Linux kernel that also provide this. Sadly, few Linux platforms ship today with native ACLs and Extended Attributes enabled. This chapter has pertinent information for users of platforms that support them.