File linux share window

How to share files between a Linux and Windows computer

The easiest and most reliable way to share files between a Linux and Windows computer on the same local area network is to use the Samba file sharing protocol. All modern versions of Windows come with Samba installed, and Samba is installed by default on most distributions of Linux.

Create a shared folder on Windows

First, create a shared folder on your Windows machine.

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Go to Network and Sharing Options.
3. Go to Change Advanced Sharing Settings.
4. Select Turn on Network Discovery and Turn on File and Print Sharing.

Now, create a new folder to share or choose an existing folder that you’d like to share.

1. Right-click the folder and select Properties.
2. Go to the Sharing tab.
3. Above the Share button is the network name of the share you are creating. It should look like \\YOURCOMPUTERNAME\Users\YourUserName\ShareFolderName. Make a note of this network name to use later on your Linux machine.
4. Click Share.

Access a Windows shared folder from Linux, using Konqueror

Many Linux distributions use the KDE desktop environment and the Konqueror file manager/browser. If this is what you are using, you can follow these steps to access your Windows shared folder:

1. Click the K menu icon.
2. Select Internet ->Konqueror.
3. In the Konqueror window that opens, click the Network Folders link, or type remote:/ in the address bar and press Enter .
4. Click the Samba Shares icon.
5. Click the icon of your Windows Home workgroup.
6. Click the Workgroup icon.
7. Click the icon for your computer.
8. When prompted, enter the username and password for the Windows account that created the share.
9. Click OK.

Access a Windows shared folder from Linux, using Nautilus

Many Linux distributions, especially those that use the GNOME desktop environment, use the Nautilus file manager. If this is what you’re using, you can follow these steps to access your Windows shared folder:

1. Open Nautilus.
2. From the File menu, select Connect to Server.
3. In the Service type drop-down box, select Windows share.
4. In the Server field, enter the name of your computer.
5. Click Connect.

Alternatively, in the Nautilus address bar, you can type smb://ComputerName/ShareName and press Enter . For instance, when you created your Windows Share, if the share name was listed as:

Type smb://YOURCOMPUTERNAME/Users/YourUserName/ShareFolderName and press Enter . Note the smb: at the beginning; in Linux, use forward slashes instead of backslashes.

Access a Windows shared folder from Linux, using the command line

You can also access your Windows share from the Linux command line using the smbclient program.

1. Open a terminal.
2. Type smbclient at the command prompt.
3. If you receive a «Usage:» message, this means smbclient is installed, and you can skip to the next step. If the command is not found, however, you need to install smbclient. Follow these steps to install it.

Источник

How to Mount Windows Share on Ubuntu Linux

CIFS (Common Internet File System) is a popular file sharing protocol on Internet. It allows users on a Linux system access to a particular mount point on a windows share.

CIFS is an implementation of SMB (Server Message Block) — a protocol used for network file sharing.

This tutorial will go through all steps of installing and configuring relevant utilities in order to mount windows share on Linux system.

Installing CIFS

Install cifs-utils package on Ubuntu Linux by using the following command line

Mounting a Windows Share

In this section, the tutorial will show you the way to manually and automatically mount windows share on Linux systems.

Creating a directory on your Ubuntu Linux machine, the name of directory is arbitrary. In the below command line, I created a folder named winshare under /mnt

/mnt/winshare is the mount point of the remote windows share.

Windows share can be mounted on your Ubuntu Linux system mount point using cifs option of mount command

WIN_SHARE_IP is the IP address of windows machine.

If the $windows_user is in a windows domain, specify the domain as the following command line

By default, linux mount windows share with the full permission (rwx or 777). If you want to change the permission on your own, please use the dir_mode and file_mode options to set permission for directory and file.

You also can change the default ownership of user and group by specify the uid (user id) and gid (group id) options.

Once the windows share is successfully mounted, using command df -h for verifying the mounting windows share in Linux. In the following example, WIN_SHARE_IP = 192.168.1.8 and $shared_name = sharefolder

Secure CIFS credential

This section will explain how to use a credential file when your Ubuntu Linux mount the share using command.

Create a cifs credentials file: /etc/cifs-credentials. The file contains the below information:

Grant permission read and write to credentials file:

Now, we can mount the share using credentials with command as follows:

Auto mount the shares

If you manually mount the shares using mount command, when you reboot your Linux machine, the shares will be lost.

The file /etc/fstab contains the necessary configuration that allows automatically mount cifs permanently.

Edit the /etc/fstab file with your favorite editors (vim, nano. )

Then add the following line to the file.

Run the command to mount all the entries listed in /etc/fstab

Since then, the mount cifs will be persistent across reboots.

Unmount the shares

In order to unmount a share, you have to determine the mount point. In the above example, mount point is /mnt/winshare. Use the umount command:

If the mount point is in a busy process and the above command failed, run command with option -l (—lazy)

Conclusion

The tutorial has gone through all steps to mount a windows share on Ubuntu Linux using CIFS. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.

More Articles You May Like

6 Comments. add one

I do not understand why you need to specify the Windows machine IP adress. These are constantly changing when using DHCP, which almost everyone uses. Does that mean that one has to go through the above procedure every day if one wants to connect to a Windows machine whose IP address has changed (people shut off their computers at night, likely getting a new IP address asigned the next day when turned on)? Is there a way that automatically detects the target Windows machine, as Windows does in its own networking system?

If IP address changes, use DNS names

This doesn’t appear to work in the latest ubuntu release.
If I do it from the command line, it requires the «vers=2.0» option.
Not sure how to fix it in the fstab. All I get is error(22) invalid argument.

What does tail -f /var/log/kern.log shows when you mount?

I’m not sure if it’s the cause of your error, but there’s a typo in the fstab line — where it says «dir_node=0755», it should say «dir_mode=0755». Double check that’s correct in your fstab.

Источник

How to Share Files Between Windows and Linux

File sharing is the action of sending a file or more from one computer to another. In theory, it’s a simple thing. The process is quite simple and straightforward if both of the computers are running the same operating system. When it’s different, things get a bit complicated.

In this guide, check out how to share files between Windows and Linux.

Sharing files between Windows and Linux

There are multiple ways to configure both Windows and Linux to share files. However, in the case of this guide, I’ll be mostly showcasing how to configure Linux for file sharing. For Windows-specific configuration, I’ll be showcasing only the necessary ones.

Let’s get started!

Share files using portable storage devices

This is one of the most common and traditional ways of sharing files between two computers. Generally, it involves portable storage media. Got a USB flash drive? A portable HDD/SSD? Just plug it into the source computer, copy the data to the portable storage, and share it with your target computer.

In certain scenarios where the data is too big to be shared over the network/internet, this is the best solution. In a professional workspace where terabytes of data need to be shared and stored, there are portable RAID arrays to do the job.

While it’s simple and effective, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

• Storage capacity: Data bigger than the capacity can’t be stored on portable storage. If that’s the case, then you may split the file into smaller pieces using file splitting software. You may have to move the data through the portable storage several times.
• File size: If the file size is quite small, and there’s lots of them, the transfer rate is going to be slow. On the other hand, if the file size is ridiculously large, then it’s also going to be slow.
• Filesystem: Linux and Windows come with their own filesystem. While filesystems like FAT (fat16, fat32, etc.) or NTFS are accessible from both Windows and Linux, the Linux-specific filesystems (ext3, ext4, xfs, btrfs, etc.) aren’t.

Share files over cloud storage

Cloud storage is the standard way of file sharing in this internet era. Files can be uploaded and downloaded on any device with a modern web browser. However, there are a couple of different points to remember if you wish to choose this path.

• Storage capacity: In the case of online cloud storage, storage capacity is a big concern. Popular cloud storages offer a limited amount of cloud storage for free. If your file is larger than that, you may have to buy additional cloud storage space. You can also split the big file into multiple small ones.
• Bandwidth: This is the second biggest concern when it comes to cloud storage. If the internet connection you’re using is slow, then the file upload/download time will take quite a while. If you’re using a metered connection, it can cost you a lot.

Some of the popular online cloud storage include Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, pCloud, Box, etc. Almost all of them offer a reasonable amount of cloud storage for free.

Share files using network folders

If both computers are on the same network, it’s possible to take advantage of it. In this method, certain folders of the source machine will be available to other machines.

Configure Linux

To enjoy this feature, you have to configure the systems first. In the case of Linux, Samba is the perfect solution. Samba is the standard suite of programs for UNIX/Linux operating systems for standard Windows interoperability. Check out Samba.

Samba is popular software that you can grab from the official package repos of your distro. To install Samba, run the command according to your distro.

Источник

How to Mount a Windows Share Folder on Linux

Linux and Windows systems have major differences, with different file systems and protocols in use. Sharing files between them can be difficult, especially because they use two different sharing protocols. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to mount a Windows share folder on Linux, however. Follow along below to find out how.

Also read: How to View Shared Files and Folders in Windows 10

Share Your Windows Folder

Before you do anything, you need to ensure that Windows has been correctly set up to allow for networking file sharing.

To enable this on Windows, right-click on the network icon in the notifications area of your Windows taskbar. From here, click “Open Network & Internet Settings.”

Under the “Status” category, click “Sharing options.”

In your Windows sharing options menu, make sure that “Turn on network discovery” and “Turn on file and printer sharing” are enabled.

Click the radio buttons next to both options to make sure this is the case.

Click “Save changes” to save your settings. Once this is done, open Windows File Explorer and locate the folder you’re looking to share with your Linux PC.

Right-click the folder and click “Properties.”

In your folder properties, click the “Sharing” tab, then click “Advanced Sharing.” Click to enable the “Share this folder” checkbox, then click “Permissions.”

Under the “Permissions” section, set the control rights for your folder. By default, Windows will grant read-only access to your files.

If you want to allow everyone to read or write to the folder, click “Allow” for the “Full Control” permissions set. Set these permissions to suit your own requirements.

Once you’re done, click “OK” three times to close each of the dialog boxes.

Your folder should now be shared on your network, ready for you to access from your Linux PC.

Install CIFS-utils

Depending on your Linux distribution, you may be able to mount your Windows-shared folder automatically in your distribution’s file explorer.

However, this may not work correctly. The safest way to mount Windows-shared folders on Linux is to use the CIFS-utils package and mount the folder using the Linux terminal.

This allows Linux machines to access SMB file shares used by Windows PCs.

To install CIFS-utils, open a new terminal window. For Ubuntu and Debian-based distributions, type:

For Arch users, type:

Once installed, you can then mount your Windows share folder from the Linux terminal.

Mount Windows SMB Share on Linux

You’ll need to create a mount directory before you can mount your Windows SMB-shared folder on Linux. This is where Linux will mirror the contents of your shared folder.

To do that, open a terminal window and type:

Once created, type the following:

Replace “Windows” with the IP address or hostname for your Windows PC and “SharedFolder” with your shared folder name. For the username, replace “account” with your Windows username or full Microsoft account email.

You’ll be asked to provide your Windows password before the mounting process is complete. Type this in, then click Enter. If you used the correct information, your Windows folder should now be mounted and accessible in the folder you created.

Sharing Files Between Linux and Windows in Dual Boot

Sharing files between Windows and Linux works great when you mount a shared folder between the two devices, but can you still share files with a dual boot setup? Linux and Windows have separate file systems. Linux usually uses Ext4, while Windows uses NTFS and also works with FAT32. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to see and share files, though.

You’ll need a compatible Windows system, build 20211 or higher, and a few other resources to make it work. Don’t worry. Everything is free. This guide walks you through each step in the process, including a way to read and share files between Windows and Linux.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why do I get a syntax error when trying to mount a folder in Linux?

Either there’s a small error in the command in the terminal window, or you have a space in the folder name. Spaces don’t always come across correctly in the syntax. Instead of recognizing the command as the full name of the folder, the system sees two unrelated items.

Avoid this by placing the name in quotes. For instance, Shared Folder would become “Shared Folder.” Of course, you can also just rename the Windows 10 folder to place the words together or have a dash between them.

2. Can I mount a shared folder if I use VirtualBox?

Yes. The process should work the same way. You can also share devices, such as USB drives.

3. Can I mount guest, network, or password protected folders?

Yes, but since you’re not using the main Windows 10 account, you will need to adjust the syntax a bit. Plus, if you’re mounting a network folder, you’ll also need the server or machine name.

While this guide applies to Ubuntu, it should work for most major Linux distros as well. It lists the syntax for different scenarios, assuming you’ve already completed all of the steps (except the final mounting) above.

4. Why do I only have read access for the shared folder?

If you want to store files in the shared folder from Linux, make sure you have full read/write access to the folder in Windows. If the Windows user account only has read permission, this is the only permission you’ll have from Linux as well. You must change your account permissions from within Windows 10. For companies, you’ll need your IT admin to make the change for you.

5. Why aren’t folder changes showing up?

If you’ve made changes to the permissions of the folder, they may not show up immediately in Linux. You’ll need to remount the folder for changes to take effect.

Use the command above to remount any shared folders. This should ensure things work as expected. If you have any random glitches, remounting typically fixes them.

Wrapping Up

Mounting Windows and Linux shared folders gives you the freedom to access your most important files, no matter the operating system. The SMB protocol is well supported on Linux, so you shouldn’t find it difficult to continue accessing your Windows files and folders once you’ve installed the CIFS-utils package.

If you’d rather use a single system, here are five of the best Linux distros for Windows users you could use.

Crystal Crowder has spent over 15 years working in the tech industry, first as an IT technician and then as a writer. She works to help teach others how to get the most from their devices, systems, and apps. She stays on top of the latest trends and is always finding solutions to common tech problems.

One comment

I make an NTFS partition and save files to be shared on it. Linux files have ‘permissions’ which are not saved on an NTFS partition, so they become available to anyone, even a Windows pain!

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Popular Posts

RedMagic 6S Pro Review: Gaming Is Serious Business.

How to Boot to Recovery Mode (Safe Mode) in Ubuntu

Ubuntu Software Center Not Working? Here Are the Fixes

How to Stress Test a Graphics Card on Linux

How to Mount Your iPhone as an External Drive in Ubuntu

How to Fix Ubuntu Freezing in VirtualBox

How to Fix «Repository Does Not Have Release File» Error

How to Combine PDF Files on Windows and Linux

How to Reset the Root Password in Linux

8 Reasons to Switch from Windows to Linux

5 of the Best Linux Distros for Developers and Programmers

Affiliate Disclosure: Make Tech Easier may earn commission on products purchased through our links, which supports the work we do for our readers.

Источник