Share Folders on Local Network Between Ubuntu and Windows

Last updated October 29, 2020 By Mohd Sohail 47 Comments

This is a complete tutorial to show you how to share folders over the local network between Windows and Ubuntu.

Do you have multiple devices in your home? Do you have to use Flash Drive or SD card to transfer data from Ubuntu to another computer? Do you find it annoying? We know you do. Because we don’t want you to waste your precious time while you can transfer your files, documents, and other large stuff quickly and easily, over the local network. It’s one-time setup and then with some clicks you will be able to share files between Ubuntu and Windows or any other Linux system. And don’t worry it’s easy and takes only a little time.

One more thing to add, while we performed this tutorial on Ubuntu, this tutorial should be valid for any other Linux OS.

Share folder on local network in Ubuntu

If you are using Ubuntu, there are two ways you can share your local files over the local network to access it from Windows or other Linux computers.

1. Share it for everyone’s access on local network, without password
2. Password protect the folders for restricted access

We’ll see both methods in this post and will let you decide which one you would prefer to use.

Method 1. Share folders on local network without password

You’ll have to do some settings on both Windows and Ubuntu.

Enable sharing on Ubuntu

To share a folder on the local network in Ubuntu, right click on the desired folder and select Local Network Share:

Possible troubleshoot: If you do not see the option of Local Network Share in right click menu, open a terminal and use the following command to install nautlius-share:

You’ll need to restart Nautilus. Either log out and log in back or use the command below:

When you click on Local Network Share, you will see the option of sharing the folder. Just check the option of Share this folder:

Possible troubleshoot: If you are prompted about Sharing service not being installed, like in the screenshot below, just click on Install service and follow the instructions.

When you check the option of Share this folder, you’ll see option of Create Share available for you. You can also allow other users to edit the files in the shared folder. Option for guest access can be checked as well.

You’ll see that the folder icon have been changed to show that it has been shared. To stop sharing a folder, just uncheck the Share this folder option.

Now access the shared folder on Windows machine.

Step 2: Enable sharing on Windows

On Windows, right click on “This PC” or “My Computer”, and select “Add a new connection”.

Adding New Connection

Click on “next” button.

Adding New Connection

Now it’s time to enter server address and the name of folder which we’ve shared. Please enter in following format.

You can find your server’s address, i.e. IP address of Linux machine by entering ip a command.

In my case, IP address of Linux machine is 192.168.0.102 and folder I’ve shared is share.

Ip Address

Now add the location in the following manner:

Entering Server Address

Now you will see this screen, just click next.

Adding New Connection

Now, you can access the shared folder in “This PC” or “My Computer” under “Network Location” section.

New Shared Folder

Now this was the easy way out. This provides access to anyone on your local network to access these files.

In normal condition, you should prefer this. I mean, devices on your home network should be generally known devices. But this could not be the case always. What if you want only certain people to access it?

This is where Samba server comes in picture. We’ll see that in the second part of the tutorial.

2. Share the folders on local network in Ubuntu with password protection

To do this, we need to configure Samba server. Actually, we did use Samba in the previous part of this tutorial. We just did not emphasize on it. Before we go on seeing how to set up Samba server for local network sharing in Ubuntu, let’s first have a quick look on what actually is Samba.

What is Samba?

Samba is the software package that allows you to share files, documents and printers across a network, irrespective of whether you are using Linux, Windows and Mac. It’s available for all major platforms and can work tremendously nice in all of them. Quoting from Wikipedia:

Samba a free software re-implementation of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol, and was originally developed by Andrew Tridgell. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Windows Clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain Controller (PDC) or as a domain member. It can also be part an Active Directory domain.

Install Samba server on Ubuntu

You can easily install Samba on you Ubuntu box. Before installing update your system so that you can install any available updates.

Now install Samba serer and few other required stuffs with the following command:

Once you’ve installed Samba server, it’s time to configure Samba from the graphical interface window to share files.

Configure Samba server on Ubuntu

Open Samba Configuration tool from the dash:

Go to Preference->Server Settings. Although the default settings are good and may be same you need. But you may need to make change to it in some cases.

Now in Server Settings you’ve two tabs, ‘Basic’ and ‘Security’. Under Basic tab you’ve the following options that mean:

• Workgroup – This is the name of the Workgroup of the computer you want to connect to. For example, if you want to connect to a Windows computer so you will enter the workgroup name of Windows computer, and in Windows you already have the same workgroup name as is set by default in Samba Server Settings. But if you have a different workgroup name on Windows then you will enter that workgroup name in this field. (In Windows 7 to get the workgroup name, right-click Computer icon and go to Properties, there you’ll see Windows Workgroup name.)
• Description – This is the name of your computer as seen by others. Don’t use spaces or non-internet friendly characters.

Allowing ‘Guests’ is not advisable so there is no reason to change security settings. Keep as it is.

It is all done! You’ve setup Samba Server. We are not far from sharing our first folder on network.

Create a system user for network file sharing

We will now create a system user for sharing file on network. This is how simple it is.

• Go to System Settings.
• Under Systems Settings Click User Accounts.
• Click unlock to Enable + (plus) icon.
• Click + (plus) icon to create a new system user.

Now as you can see the above image, you can enter ‘Full name’. As you enter ‘Full name’ Username will be taken as Full name automatically. Because we are creating this user to share files so we will assign Account Type to ‘Standard‘.

Done above steps? Click add. You have created a system user. The user is not yet activated so we will activate it by setting up password for this account. Make sure Users accounts panel is unlocked. Click Account disabled and type a new password, then confirm password and click Change.

Yipee… Upto now we have installed and configured Samba and We have created a System user to share files on network from the account and we have activated our newly created account, too. Now We will move to Samba for the last step of configuring everything, then we will share a folder.

Add new Samba user

Open Samba and click Samba Users under Preference. Fill up the the simple dialogue. Here are couple of details about the fields:

Unix Username – In this case I am selecting the user that I just created.

Windows Username – You will enter this username when you are accessing from Windows Machine.

Samba Password – You will enter this password when you are accessing from Windows Machine.

Once you’ve done click OK. Now take a deep breath. You have successfully created a network with the help of Samba. Now restart the network or Samba services and ready to share files with other machines.

Share folders or files over the network

To share files with Samba it’s simple with graphical user interface. Click the Plus icon in Samba and you will get dialogue like this:

Complete the fields. In ‘Directory‘ browse the folder you want to share. Here are the details about the fields you will see here:

• Share name is the name of the folder that other would see.
• Description is simply about the content you are sharing on network.
• Writable You shared folders are ‘read only’ by default. You can set them to writable if you want others on network to change them.
• Visible As the name suggests when you click Visible, the shared folder will be visible to the people on network.

Now you can set permissions for the folder you are sharing. To do this click ‘Access’ tab and check the users you want to share the folder with. When you select Allow access to everyone, the folder will be accessible to everyone on the network.

Finally click OK to complete the sharing. Now the folder is shared with the people you want. You have completed sharing file on network. Is there everything left? Yes! How to remove the folders from the network?

Remove shared folders

We will also need to remove some of the folders after sometime from network. It is very simple and here is how we can do that.

This is all done! We can also share files over network using terminal but that would not be as easy as this one. If you request for command line sharing then I will write a tutorial on how to share files over network with command line in Linux.

So, how do you find this tutorial to share files on local network in Ubuntu? I hope with this tutorial you can easily share files between Ubuntu and Windows. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to ask it in the comment box below.

This tutorial was requested by Kalc. If you would like, you can request your own tutorial. We would be happy to help you out along with other readers facing the same issue.

Like what you read? Please share it with others.

Share Files on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Windows 10 Systems

If you need to get Windows systems to access Ubuntu file and folder resources… you may need to use Samba… One can use other methods.. but Samba is the easiest to setup and works great with Windows machines…

Samba is an open source software that provides seamless file and print services to SMB/CIFS clients. Since Windows uses CIFS services, Samba can be a great tool to enable file and print sharing between Windows and Linux systems.

For this tutorial to work, you may want to set both Windows and Ubuntu machines on the same subnet. Our subnet for this post is going to be 192.168.1.0/24

The Windows machine will have IP address 192.168.1.2 and the Linux machine 192.168.1.3

Both machine will also be in the same local workgroup. You can name the workgroup whatever you want, but for this post, our workgroup will be the default Windows workgroup called WORKGROUP

Both the Windows and Ubuntu machines will be member of the local workgroup called WORKGROUP

Step 1: Find Windows Workgroup name

To find out which Workgroup Windows machine belongs, open the command prompts and type the commands below

net config workstation

When you run the commands above, you should see your current Workstation domain name for the computer… Mostly, it would be called WORKGROUP

Step 2: Add Ubuntu machine IP to Windows local host file.

If you don’t have a DNS system in place and you want to reference each system by their names, you’ll want to add their names in the local host file on each machine.. For Windows system, open the commands prompt as administrator and run the commands below

Then add the local entry for the Ubuntu machine to be referenced by the named ubuntu16.04

192.168.1.3 ubuntu1610.localhost ubuntu1016

Save your changes and you’re done.

STEP 3: ENABLE WINDOWS FILESHARING

To make fileshare possible, it must be enabled on the systems that are sharing. To enable file sharing on Windows, run the commands prompt as administrator and run the commands below

Then run the commands below to enable filesharing and network discovery.

Step 4: Install Samba on Ubuntu 16.10

At this point, Windows and Ubuntu systems should be member of the same workgroup and both systems have entries in their local host file to reference the other by name.

Next, logon on to the Ubuntu machine to install Samba. To install Samba, run the commands below.

sudo apt-get install samba samba-common python-glade2 system-config-samba

After installing Samba, go and config Samba.

Step 5: Configure Samba Public share

Now that Samba is installed, run the commands below to backup its default configuration file.

sudo mv /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.bak

Next, open Samba configuration file by running the commands below.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Copy and paste the content below into the file and save…

workgroup = WORKGROUP server string = Samba Server %v netbios name = ubuntu1604 security = user map to guest = bad user name resolve order = bcast host dns proxy = no bind interfaces only = yes #============================ Share Definitions ============================== [Public] path = /samba/public writable = yes guest ok = yes guest only = yes read only = no create mode = 0777 directory mode = 0777 force user = nobody

Save your change

Step 6: Create the Public folder to share

Now that Samba is configured and the share folder block is added, go and create the folder you want to share. To do that, run the commands below.

sudo mkdir -p /samba/public

Set the permissions so that everyone can read and write to it.

Restart Samba and open Windows File Explorer to view the shared location on Ubuntu

sudo service smbd restart

Now go to your Windows machine and you should see the shared Public folder on Ubuntu from when you browse File Manager as shown below…

Everyone should have access there.

Step 6: Configure Samba Private Share

Now you know how to create Samba public shares, let’s go and create private and protected shares. Only users that are member of the approved group will be able to access the secure location with passwords.

First create a samba group called smbgroup for the share.. only members will have access. To create a groups in Ubuntu, run the commands below.

sudo addgroup smbgroup

Then add a user to the group by running the commands below

sudo adduser richard smbgroup

Finally, all users who need to access a protected samba share will need to type a password. To add a user to samba password database, run the commands below for each user.

sudo smbpasswd -a richard

The user will be prompted to enter and confirm a password. This password will be used to access the protected samba shares.

Next, go and create a protected share in the /samba directory.

sudo mkdir -p /samba/ protected

Then give only root and members group access to this share.

When you’re done creating the protected share, go and share it in the smb.conf file.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Then add configuration block below into smb.conf file just below the one above

Save your changes and you’re done.

Restart Samba and test your changes.

sudo service smbd restart

You should now see two folders… one is protected

Many more shares can be defined using the format above.

Only member of the smbgroup will be able to access the Protected area…

You could map the drive in Windows for easy access….

That’s it! This is how to setup Samba to share files with Ubuntu

You may also like the post below:

Published by Richard Zayzay

Hi, I’m Richard. In my spare time, I research topics that are interesting and worthwhile for users and students who want to try something new. I, too, am a student and my focus here is to help other students and new users get started with managing Ubuntu Linux, Windows, Content Management Systems (CMS) and others. I try to do my best explaining the topics and detailing the instructions so that anyone can understand. These tutorials may not work in all situations and for all users. However, if you run into trouble, please ask your questions below and I or someone from the community may help you resolve. Thanks for reading and hope you come back.

8 Replies to “Share Files on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with Windows 10 Systems”

$ sudo apt-get install samba samba-common python-glade2 system-config-samba
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Package python-glade2 is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

Package samba-common is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

Package samba is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
samba-libs libnss-winbind libpam-winbind

E: Package ‘samba’ has no installation candidate
E: Package ‘samba-common’ has no installation candidate
E: Package ‘python-glade2’ has no installation candidate

when I try to log onto the protected folder on windows I get an error message
\\UBUNTU\Protected is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource.

Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more than one user name, are not allowed.

I think Ubuntu 16.04 is the MS equivalent of Vista. A total POS.
I’ve tried to share out a drive on this machine and I’ve done ten different methods and I always get the same error. It’s garbage.
BTW! The instructions here? Don’t waste your time – I did and I’m sorry for the minutes I’ve lost trying it.
Garbage!