How to Setup a Raspberry Pi Samba Server

In this Raspberry Pi Samba tutorial, we will be showing you how you can share directories from your Raspberry Pi using the SMB/CIFS protocols.

Samba is a re-implementation of the SMB (Server Message Block) networking protocol and allows Linux computers to integrate into Microsoft’s active directory environments seamlessly.

CIFS or Common Internet File System is an implementation of the SMB protocol.  In modern setups, CIFs or SMB is used interchangeably, but most people will use the term SMB.

By using Samba on our Raspberry Pi, we can easily share directories in a way that they can be accessed on almost every operating system.

Samba is one of the easiest to set up and configure file servers, which makes it one of the best solutions for setting up a NAS, especially when you intend on targeting Windows systems.

There are plenty of other NAS setups that you can run on your Raspberry Pi. I prefer Samba has I run into the least problems, but something else might appeal to you more.

Equipment

Below is all the equipment that you will need for setting up Samba on your Raspberry Pi.

Recommended

• Raspberry Pi ( Amazon | SunFounder )
• Micro SD Card ( Amazon | SunFounder ) (8GB+)
• Ethernet Cable ( Amazon ) or Wi-Fi ( Amazon | SunFounder )
• External Hard Drive ( Amazon )

Optional

• Raspberry Pi Case ( Amazon | SunFounder )
• USB Keyboard ( Amazon | SunFounder )
• USB Mouse ( Amazon | SunFounder )
• HDMI Cable ( Amazon | SunFounder )

Note: The USB ports on the Raspberry Pi might not be enough to power an external drive so you might need to invest in a powered USB hub.

Setting up Samba on your Raspberry Pi

Over the following sections, we will be showing you how to set up a Samba share on your Raspberry Pi.

Installing Samba on to your Raspberry Pi

1. The first thing that we must do before we setup a SMB/CIFS share on our Raspberry Pi is to make sure everything is up to date.

We can update the package list and all our packages by running the following two commands.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

2. Now that we have Raspberry Pi OS entirely up to date, we can now proceed on to installing the Samba software.

We can install the packages that we require to setup Samba by running the following command.

sudo apt install samba samba-common-bin

Creating a Directory to Share

3. Before we set up our network storage on our Pi, we need to first create a folder that we will share.

This folder can be located anywhere, including on a mounted external hard drive. For this tutorial, we will be creating the directory within our current users home directory.

Create this folder by using the mkdir command. By using the tilde (~) symbol, we will be creating this new folder within the current user’s home.

mkdir ~/shared

Ensure that you don’t use “sudo” to create any directories you want shared. A directory created using “sudo” will be owned by the root user.

If you use sudo, you will need to use the chown command to give ownership of that directory to your actual user.

Configuring Samba on your Raspberry Pi

4. Now we can share this folder using the Samba software. To do this, we need to modify the samba config file.

The “smb.conf” configuration file is where you will store all your settings for your shares.

We can begin modifying the config file by using the nano text editor.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

5. Within this file, add the following to the bottom. This text defines various details of our share.

For this example to work, ensure that you replace “<USERNAME>” with the name of your user.

[pimylifeupshare]
path = /home/<USERNAME>/shared
writeable = yes
browseable = yes
public=no

• [pimylifeupshare] – This block defines the start of a new Samba share. The text between the square brackets ([ ]) is the name that will be assigned to your share.
  
  For example, by setting our share name to “pimylifeupshare” we would be able to access this by going to: “\\192.168.0.134\pimylifeupshare“.
• path – Use this option to specify the path of the directory you want to share using Samba on your Raspberry Pi.
• writeable – When this option is set to “yes“, it will allow the folder to be writable.
  
  If you want to block users from being able to write to this share, set this to “no“.
• browseable – The browsable option allows you to control whether this share will be viewable by others on your network. Setting this option to “yes” will allow others to find this share on your network.
  
  By setting this option to “no“, you will be required to enter the share path to connect to it.
• public – If this is set to “no” the Pi will require a connection to have a valid user to access the Samba share.

6. With the changes made to the file, you can now go ahead and save it by pressing CTRL + X then Y followed by ENTER.

Setting up a User to Access your Samba Shares

7. Next, we need to set up a user for our Samba share on the Raspberry Pi. Without it, we won’t be able to make a connection to the shared network drive

To assign a Samba password to your user we will need to utilize the “smbpassword” tool. Use the command below to set a password for your user, replace “<USERNAME>” with the name of your user.

sudo smbpasswd -a <USERNAME>

8. You will now be prompted to type in a new SMB password for your user.

New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:

9. If you see the following message, then you can tell that you have successfully added an SMB password to your user.

You will be using this username and password to connect to your shares.

Added user USERNAME

Restarting Samba on your Raspberry Pi

10. Finally, before we connect to our Raspberry Pi Samba share, we need to restart the samba service so that it loads in our configuration changes.

sudo systemctl restart smbd

11. The last thing we should do before we try connecting to our Samba share is to retrieve our Raspberry Pi’s local IP address.

First, make sure you’re connected to a network by either connecting Ethernet cable or setup WiFi.

While you can connect using the Pi’s network name, we will grab the IP address just in case that option fails to work on your home network.

Run the command below to print out the Pi’s local IP Address.

hostname -I

In the next couple of sections, we will walk you through the process of connecting to your network attached storage on Windows and macOS.

Connecting to your Samba Server on Windows

1. To connect to your Samba on Windows, begin by opening up the “File Explorer“.

Within the “File Explorer” click the “Computer” tab (1.) then click “Map network drive” (2.)

2. You will now be greeted by the dialog shown below asking you to enter some details.

Within the “Folder” textbox (1.) you will want to enter the following “\\raspberrypi\pimylifeupshare“.

Make sure that you replace “pimylifeupshare” with the name that you defined for your Samba share.

If for any reason the connection fails, you can switch out “raspberrypi” with your Raspberry Pi’s local IP address that you retrieved in step 9 of the setting up section of this tutorial.

Once done, click the “Finish” button to finalize the connection.

3. Finally, you will be asked to enter your login details to be able to finish the connection.

Enter the username and password (1.) you set using the “smbpasswd” tool earlier on in the tutorial.

Once done, click the “OK” button (2.) to continue.

Connecting to your Samba Share on macOS

1. Now to connect to your Raspberry Pi’s Samba server on a macOS system.

You will have to begin by opening the “Finder” application as we have shown in the screenshot below.

2. With the “Finder” application now open, click the “Go” button (1.) in the toolbar, then click the “Connect to Server…” option (2.).

3. Now that the “Connect to server” dialog is now open on your device you can go ahead and enter in the details for your Raspberry Pi’s SMB share.

Within the address box (1.) you will need to enter “smb://192.168.0.159/pimylifeupshare“.

You will need to swap out the IP address “192.168.0.159” with the IP address of your Raspberry Pi that you retrieved in step 9 of the setting up section of this tutorial.

Also, if you changed the name of the share name from “pimylifeupshare“, you will need to change that section of the address.

Once you have entered the address, you can click the “Connect” button (2.) to begin the connection to your Raspberry Pi’s Samba share.

4. Before the connection is complete, you will be asked to enter both the username and password that you set up using the “smbpasswd” (1.) tool earlier in this guide.

Once you have entered in both of these details, go ahead and click the “Connect” button (2.) to finalize the connection.

Conclusion

By now you should have successfully set up a network drive that you can access on both a Windows PC or a Mac computer. You should also be able to access it on other devices such as mobile phones.

I hope that this Raspberry Pi Samba server tutorial has shown you everything you need to know to have your network storage up and working. If you have any feedback then please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

If you found this guide to be helpful, we recommend checking out our many other Raspberry Pi projects.

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