Following on from the last post covering the hardware setup of a Raspberry Pi NAS, this post gives instructions to set up samba on the NAS, in order to access the files from a windows machine.

Install samba:

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install samba samba-common-bin

Now configure samba using vi (or replace with your favoured editor):

sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

Add to the bottom of this file:

[name_of_share]
path=/local/path
writeable=Yes
create mask=0777
directory mask=0777
public=no

Set up a Samba password for your user (replace <user> with your desired username):

sudo smbpasswd -a <user>

Enter the password, twice, as directed.

New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:
Added user <user>.

Restart the samba service:

sudo service smbd restart

You can now access this directory from a windows machine on your local network. From a command prompt run the following command replacing:

  • <drive_letter>: with a spare drive letter (for example z:), or just use * to allocate an unused drive letter
  • <nas> machine name or IP of your linux NAS
  • <name_of_share> as above
net use <drive_letter>: \\<nas>\<name_of_share>

You will be prompted to enter the username and password you used above.

Enter the username for 'nas2': <user>
Enter the password for nas2:
The command completed successfully.

You can now access the contents of the share, for example:

dir <drive_letter>:\

 Volume in drive <drive_letter> is <name_of_share>
 Volume Serial Number is XXXX-XXXX

 Directory of drive_letter:\

17/09/2023  16:03    <DIR>          .
17/09/2023  15:28    <DIR>          ..
...
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