How to configure Samba and give users a home directories on a Red Hat server

How can I give each of my users a home directory on a Red Hat 8 server? I want Windows users to log in and get RW access to their home directories on the server. Can I configure Samba?
The main config file in Samba is /etc/samba/smb.conf. Just remember you must restart Samba after any changes that you make. On Red Hat, the default config file already allows users to see their Linux home directories as a Samba share on the Windows PC after they log in using the same username and password. Make sure you specify the correct workgroup name and you'll be fine. For example, workgroup = myworkgroup.

To configure a Samba share directory on your Linux system, add the following section to the share section in the smb.conf file. The following statement from the config file would allow users Joe, Fred and Wilma access to the /home/share directory with RW that you need.

valid users = joe fred wilma
public = no
writable = yes

For more additional help on Samba, see www.samba.org. Good luck!

Can I use NIS or what? and how do I configure it?

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You can use NIS with Samba. Try putting this in your smb.conf file: 

encrypt passwords = yes
unix password sync = yes
passwd program = /bin/yppasswd %u
As you can see, the password program uses the NIS program to do the trick.

This was first published in February 2004

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