Simplifying Samba Sharing from WHS

by Damian on November 10, 2009 · 6 comments

If you stream from your WHS  to any media player via smb (such at the Popcorn Hour or Myka) you know that one of the biggest PITAs is that you can only mount 1 share at a time. What this means is that if you store all your media in the respective WHS shared folders (Videos, Music, Photos) you will need to create a separate smb share for each shared folder and can only access one share at a time on your media player. Well, forum member Specter over at Networked Media Tank has come up with a solution to allow all your WHS shared folders to appear under one smb share.

  • Enable Guest Account in WHS – best practice is to keep Shared Folder Access at Read only. Any shared folder set to Full could result in files being deleted accidentally (you could do this through the PCH by simply pressing the delete key on the remote)

WHS Console Properties

The rest of the steps can be done by remoting in to the WHS. However, since I have Advanced Admin Console I will do everything through the WHS console.

  • Share ”shares” folder – go into your Data (D:) drive, right click on the “shares” folder, go to the Sharing tab, and enable sharing of this folder.

Advanced Admin Console

WHS Console Sharing

  • Add User/Group – right click on the “shares” folder in the D: drive, select Properties, go to the Security tab, and click Add. A box should now pop up. We are going to want to add two new User/Groups (RO_X and RW_X where X represents a letter used by your system). For Specter’s EX485 the letter G was used (i.e RO_G) but for my WHS build the letter I was used (i.e. RO_I). Type in RO_X and hit the “Check Names” names button. You will now be taken back to the Security tab and should see “RO_X (ServerName\RO_X)” in the list of User/Group names. With this selected make sure that “Read & Execute”, “List Folder Contents” and “Read” are Allowed in the Permissions section and hit “Apply”. Follow the same steps again for RW_X, but make sure all permissions except “Special Permissions” are allowed.

Advanced Admin Console-Select User

RO_X screenshot

Advanced Admin Console-RO Properties A

RW_X screenshot

Advanced Admin Console-RW Properties A

You can now go to your media player and set up a new smb share (smb://ServerName/shares). All you media will now show up under one share, no need to mess around with maintaining multiple shares (sorry for the hack job on the last screenshot!!!). 

smb share a

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Article by Damian

Hi, my name is Damian, and I'm tech gadget addict! Although I always had some interest in technology, it wasn't until I got my EX470 and more importantly found Mediasmartserver.net, that my interest became an addiction. My goal, aside from world domination and to see the Mets/Broncos win another championship, is to set up the perfect digital home where all my media is available at the click of a button. When I am not writing for Mediasmartserver.net you can find me over at my blog at http://dbone1026.blogspot.com.


{ 2 trackbacks }

Share WHS with Samba Easily « MS Windows Home Server
November 12, 2009 at 6:11 am
Sarvesh Bhardwaj › links for 2010-01-20
January 20, 2010 at 8:03 pm

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Sam Wood November 10, 2009 at 11:54 pm

Nice username on that last screenshot, Damian ;)

Damian November 11, 2009 at 3:17 am

Yeah, he was nice enough to let me test this out on his server. Unfortunately Clubber Lang wasn’t available at the time :-)

Marty November 15, 2009 at 10:42 pm

I’ve had a single SMB share on my MSS since I started using it at the begnning of this year but I did something by far more simple. All I did was remote desktop and turn sharing on the shares folder. I don’t see why people haven’t done this earlier if this is such a problem. Seems to work just fine on everything in my home network.

Otto December 28, 2009 at 11:38 am

I’m trying to connect PC3 to my HomeServer EX485 and network drives from Buffalo Tech (Network Storage – LinkStation)
but PC3 is no see this network drive
I ‘m looking for option get share drive from Home Server
(If mount my Network drive to Home Server and looking then share media content using home server – this is possible?)
What is a process
I try to install PS3 Media Server (I can’t)
http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/ (it is java apps)

Why?

Thanks

Leave a Comment

Previous post:

Next post: