Ansible role bertvv.samba

An Ansible role for setting up Samba as a file server on CentOS/RHEL 7. Specifically, the responsibilities of this role are to:

• Install the necessary packages
• Configure SELinux settings
• Create share directories
• Manage users and passwords
• Manage access to shares

Setting the firewall is not a concern of this role, so you should configure this using another role (e.g. bertvv.el7).

Requirements

• SELinux is expected to be running
• Samba users should already exist as system users. You can take a look at role bertvv.el7 that does all this and more.

Role Variables

Variables are not required, unless specified.

Variable	Default	Comments
samba_create_varwww_symlinks	false	When true, symlinks are created in /var/www/html to the shares.
samba_load_homes	false	When true, user home directories are accessible.
samba_load_printers	false	When true, printers attached to the host are shared
samba_log	-	Set the log file. If left undefined, logging is done through syslog.
samba_log_size	5000	Set the maximum size of the log file.
samba_map_to_guest	bad user	Behaviour when unregistered users access the shares.
samba_netbios_name	{{ ansible_hostname }}	The NetBIOS name of this server.
samba_passdb_backend	tdbsam	Password database backend.
samba_security	user	Samba security setting
samba_server_string	fileserver %m	Comment string for the server.
samba_shares	-	List of dicts containing share definitions. See below for details.
samba_shares_root	/srv/shares	Directories for the shares are created under this directory.
samba_users	-	List of dicts defining users that can access shares.
samba_workgroup	WORKGROUP	Name of the server workgroup.

Defining users

In order to allow users to access the shares, they need to get a password specifically for Samba:

samba_users:
  - name: alice
    password: ecila
  - name: bob
    password: bob
  - name: charlie
    password: eilrahc

Unfortunately, passwords have to be in plain text for now.

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.el7. An example:

el7_users:
  - name: alice
    comment: 'Alice'
    password: !!
    shell: /sbin/nologin
    groups:
      [...]

This user is not allowed to log in on the system (e.g. with SSH) and would only get access to the Samba shares.

Defining shares

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:

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:

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.

A complete overview of share options follows below. Only name is required, the rest is optional.

Option	Default	Comment
name	-	The name of the share.
comment	-	A comment string for the share
public	no	Controls read access for guest users
valid_users	-	Controls read access for registered users. Use the syntax of the corresponding Samba setting.
write_list	-	Controls write access for registered users. Use the syntax of the corresponding Samba setting.
group	users	The user group files in the share will be added to.
create_mask	0664	See the Samba documentation for details.
create_mode	0664	See the Samba documentation for details.
force_create_mode	0664	See the Samba documentation for details.
directory_mask	0775	See the Samba documentation for details.
directory_mode	0775	See the Samba documentation for details.
force_directory_mode	0775	See the Samba documentation for details.

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 has more details on these options.

Dependencies

No dependencies.

Example Playbook

See the test playbook

Testing

The tests directory contains tests for this role in the form of a Vagrant environment.

• test.yml is a minimal playbook that only sets the NetBios name (the only required variable)
• test-full.yml is a more complete playbook that applies most features of this role.

The directory tests/roles/samba is a symbolic link that should point to the root of this project in order to work. To create it, do

$ cd tests/
$ mkdir roles
$ ln -frs ../../PROJECT_DIR roles/samba

You may want to change the base box into one that you like. The current one is a base box I generated based on Box-Cutter's CentOS Packer template. It is shared on Atlas as bertvv/centos71.

See also

If you are looking for a Samba role for Debian or Ubuntu, take a look at this comprehensive role by Debops. Jeff Geerling also has written a Samba role for EL, but at the time of writing this, it is very basic.

Contributing

Issues, feature requests, ideas are appreciated and can be posted in the Issues section. Pull requests are also very welcome.

License

BSD

Author Information

Bert Van Vreckem (bert.vanvreckem@gmail.com)