An Ansible role for setting up Samba as a file server. It is tested on CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu and Arch Linux. Specifically, the responsibilities of this role are to:
The following are not considered concerns of this role, and you should configure these using another role (e.g. [bertvv.el7](https://galaxy.ansible.com/bertvv/el7/):
- Managing firewall settings.
- Creating system users. Samba users should already exist as system users.
**If you like/use this role, please consider giving it a star! Thanks!**
These users should already have an account on the host! Creating system users is not a concern of this role, so you should do this separately. A possibility is my role [bertvv.rh-base](https://galaxy.ansible.com/bertvv/rh-base/). An example:
Defining Samba shares and configuring access control can be challenging, since it involves not only getting the Samba configuration right, but also user and file permissions, and SELinux settings. This role attempts to simplify the process.
To specify a share, you should at least give it a name:
```Yaml
samba_shares:
- name: readonlyshare
```
This will create a share with only read access for registered users. Guests will not be able to see the contents of the share.
A good way to configure write access for a share is to create a system user group, add users to that group, and make sure they have write access to the directory of the share. This role assumes groups are already set up and users are members of the groups that control write access. Let's assume you have two users `jack` and `teach`, members of the group `pirates`. This share definition will give both read and write access to the `pirates`:
```Yaml
samba_shares:
- name: piratecove
comment: 'A place for pirates to hang out'
group: pirates
write_list: +pirates
```
Guests have no access to this share, registered users can read. You can further tweak access control. Read access can be extended to guests (add `public: yes`) or restricted to specified users or groups (add `valid_users: +pirates`). Write access can be restricted to individual pirates (e.g. `write_list: jack`). Files added to the share will be added to the specified group and group write access will be granted by default.
This is an example of configuring multiple vfs object modules to share a glusterfs volume. VFS object options are optional. The necessary VFS object modules must be present/installed outside this role. In this case samba-glusterfs was installed on centos. See samba documentation for how to install or what the default VFS object modules are.
The values for `valid_users` and `write_list` should be a comma separated list of users. Names prepended with `+` or `@` are interpreted as groups. The documentation for the [Samba configuration](https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/smb.conf.5.html) has more details on these options.
Tests for this role are provided in the form of a Vagrant environment that is kept in a separate branch, `tests`. I use [git-worktree(1)](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-worktree) to include the test code into the working directory. Instructions for running the tests:
1. Fetch the tests branch: `git fetch origin tests`
2. Create a Git worktree for the test code: `git worktree add tests tests` (remark: this requires at least Git v2.5.0). This will create a directory `tests/`.
3.`cd tests/`
4.`vagrant up` will then create test VMs for all supported distros and apply a test playbook (`test.yml`) to each one.
On Ubuntu 16.04, setting up the VM may fail while running the test playbook because a background process is running the package manager. The output looks like:
failed: [samba-ubuntu1604] (item=[u'samba-common', u'samba', u'samba-client']) => {"cache_update_time": 0, "cache_updated": false, "failed": true, "item": ["samba-common", "samba", "samba-client"], "msg": "'/usr/bin/apt-get -y -o \"Dpkg::Options::=--force-confdef\" -o \"Dpkg::Options::=--force-confold\" install 'samba-common' 'samba' 'samba-client'' failed: E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)\nE: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?\n", "stderr": "E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)\nE: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?\n", "stdout": "", "stdout_lines": []}
If you are looking for a Samba role for Debian or Ubuntu, take a look at this [comprehensive role](https://galaxy.ansible.com/list#/roles/1597) by Debops. Jeff Geerling also has written a [Samba role for EL](https://galaxy.ansible.com/list#/roles/438), but at the time of writing this, it is very basic.
Issues, feature requests, ideas are appreciated and can be posted in the Issues section.
Pull requests are also very welcome. The best way to submit a PR is by first creating a fork of this Github project, then creating a topic branch for the suggested change and pushing that branch to your own fork. Github can then easily create a PR based on that branch.
