An Ansible role for setting up Samba as a file server. It is tested on CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu and Arch Linux. Specifically, the responsibilities of this role are to:
- Install the necessary packages
- Configure SELinux settings (when SELinux is active)
- Create share directories
- Manage Samba users and passwords
- Manage access to shares
The following are not considered concerns of this role, and you should configure these using another role (e.g. bertvv.rh-base:
- Managing firewall settings.
- Creating system users. Samba users should already exist as system users.
If you like/use this role, please consider giving it a star! Thanks!
A remote code execution vulnerability may affect your Samba server installation. Samba versions 3.5.0 and before 4.6.4 are affected. If SELinux is enabled on your system, it is NOT vulnerable.
This role will check if the installed version of Samba is affected by the vulnerability and apply the proposed workaround: adding nt pipe support = no
to the [global]
section of the configuration. Remark that this disables share browsing by Windows clients.
You can explicitly disable the fix if necessary, by setting the role variable samba_mitigate_cve_2017_7494
to false
.
More info: https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2017-7494
No specific requirements
Variable | Default | Comments |
---|---|---|
samba_apple_extensions |
no | When yes, enables support for Apple specific SMB extensions. Required for Time Machine support to work (see below) |
samba_create_varwww_symlinks |
false | When true, symlinks are created in web docroot to the shares. (var/www/ or /var/www/html depending on platform) |
samba_cups_server |
localhost:631 | Value for the global option cups server (only needed when samba_printer_type is "cups") |
samba_domain_master |
true | When true, smbd enables WAN-wide browse list collation |
samba_global_include |
- | Samba-compatible configuration file with options to be loaded to [global] section (see below) |
samba_guest_account |
- | Guest account for unknown users |
samba_homes_include |
- | Samba-compatible configuration file with options to be loaded to [homes] section (see below) |
samba_interfaces |
[] | List of network interfaces used for browsing, name registration, etc. |
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_local_master |
true | When true, nmbd will try & become local master of the subnet |
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_log_level |
0 | Set Samba log level, 0 is least verbose and 10 is a flood of debug output. |
samba_map_to_guest |
bad user |
Behaviour when unregistered users access the shares. |
samba_mitigate_cve_2017_7494 |
true | CVE-2017-7494 mitigation breaks some clients, such as macOS High Sierra. |
samba_netbios_name |
{{ ansible_hostname }} |
The NetBIOS name of this server. |
samba_passdb_backend |
tdbsam |
Password database backend. |
samba_preferred_master |
true | When true, indicates nmbd is a preferred master browser for workgroup |
samba_realm |
- | Realm domain name |
samba_printer_type |
cups | value for the global option printing and printcap name |
samba_security |
user |
Samba security setting |
samba_server_max_protocol |
- | Specify a maximum protocol version offered by the server. |
samba_server_min_protocol |
- | Specify a minimum protocol version offered by the server. |
samba_server_string |
fileserver %m |
Comment string for the server. |
samba_shares_root |
/srv/shares |
Directories for the shares are created under this directory. |
samba_shares |
[] | List of dicts containing share definitions. See below for details. |
samba_users |
[] | List of dicts defining users that can access shares. |
samba_wins_support |
true | When true, Samba will act as a WINS server |
samba_workgroup |
WORKGROUP |
Name of the server workgroup. |
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. Also, remark that this role will not change the password of an existing user.
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.rh-base. An example:
rhbase_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 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.
This is an example of configuring multiple vfs object modules to share a glusterfs volume. VFS object options are optional. The necessary VFS object modules must be present/installed outside this role. In this case samba-glusterfs was installed on centos. See samba documentation for how to install or what the default VFS object modules are.
samba_shares:
- name: gluster-app_deploys
comment: 'For samba share of volume app_deploys'
vfs_objects:
- name: audit
options:
- name: facility
value: LOCAL1
- name: priority
value: NOTICE
- name: glusterfs
options:
- name: volume
value: app_deploys
- name: logfile
value: /var/log/samba/glusterfs-app_deploys.%M.log
- name: loglevel
value: 7
path: /
read_only: no
guest_ok: yes
write_list: tomcat
group: tomcat
A complete overview of share options follows below. Only name
is required, the rest is optional.
Option | Default | Comment |
---|---|---|
browseable |
- | Controls whether this share appears in file browser. |
comment |
- | A comment string for the share |
create_mode |
0664 |
See the Samba documentation for details. |
directory_mode |
0775 |
See the Samba documentation for details. |
include_file |
- | Samba combatible configuration file with options to be included for this share (see below). |
force_create_mode |
0664 |
See the Samba documentation for details. |
force_directory_mode |
0775 |
See the Samba documentation for details. |
group |
users |
The user group files in the share will be added to. |
guest_ok |
- | Allow guest access. |
name (required) |
- | The name of the share. |
owner |
root |
Set the owner of the path |
path |
/{{samba_shares_root}}/{{name}} | The path to the share directory. |
public |
no |
Controls read access for guest users |
setype |
samba_share_t |
The SELinux type of the share directory |
valid_users |
- | Controls read access for registered users. Use the syntax of the corresponding Samba setting. |
vfs_objects |
- | See the Samba documentation for details. |
writable |
- | Writable for guests. |
write_list |
- | Controls write access for registered users. Use the syntax of the corresponding Samba setting. |
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.
You can add settings that are not supported by this role out-of-the-box through custom configuration files that will be included from the main configuration file. There are three types of include files: for the global section, for the homes section, and for individual shares. Put your custom configuration files in a subdirectory templates
, relative to your master playbook location. Then, specify them in the variables samba_global_include
, samba_homes_include
, or include_file
in the samba_shares
definition.
Your custom configuration files are considered to be Jinja templates, so you can use Ansible variables inside them. The configuration files will be validated to ensure they are syntactically correct.
For example, to include templates/global-include.conf
, set:
samba_global_include: global-include.conf
Remark that is it not necessary to specify the templates/
directory.
Likewise, to include templates/piratecove-include.conf
, specific for the piratecove
share (see the example above); set:
samba_shares:
- name: piratecove
comment: 'A place for pirates to hang out'
group: pirates
write_list: +pirates
include_file: piratecove-include.conf
The test playbook has some examples. The custom configuration files can be found in the docker-tests branch.
No dependencies.
See the test playbook
Two test environments are provided for this role: one set up with Vagrant, one with Docker. The Docker test environment is also used for the Travis-CI tests. Each test environment is stored in a separate orphan branch. See the README of each for details on how to set it up locally.
Issues, feature requests, ideas are appreciated and can be posted in the Issues section.
Pull requests are also very welcome. The best way to submit a PR is by first creating a fork of this Github project, then creating a topic branch for the suggested change and pushing that branch to your own fork. Github can then easily create a PR based on that branch. Don't forget to add yourself to the list of contributors below!
2-clause BSD license, see LICENSE.md
This role could only have been realized thanks to the contributions of the people listed below. If you have an idea to improve it even further, don't hesitate to pitch in!
Issues, feature requests, ideas, suggestions, etc. can be posted in the Issues section.
Pull requests are also very welcome. Please create a topic branch for your proposed changes. If you don't, this will create conflicts in your fork after the merge. Don't hesitate to add yourself to the contributor list below in your PR!
Ben Tomasik, Bengt Giger, Bert Van Vreckem (maintainer), Birgit Croux, DarkStar1973, George Hartzell, Ian Young, Jonas Heinrich, Jonathan Underwood, Karl Goetz, morbidick, Paul Montero, Slavek Jurkowski, Sven Eeckeman, Tiemo Kieft, Tobias Wolter, Tomohiko Ozawa.