Step‑by‑Step Guide to Install and Configure Samba on CentOS 7

Server Configuration

1 Install required packages

yum install samba samba-common -y

Samba provides SMB services; samba-common contains shared configuration files.

2 Add Samba users

Create system users smb1, smb2, smb3 in the centos group, set their Samba passwords, and verify with pdbedit:

useradd smb1 -G centos
useradd smb2 -G centos
useradd smb3 -G centos
smbpasswd -a smb1
smbpasswd -a smb2
smbpasswd -a smb3
pdbedit -L

3 Create shared directory

mkdir /samba
chgrp centos /samba
chmod 2770 /samba
ls -ld /samba

4 Edit Samba configuration

Modify /etc/samba/smb.conf to set the workgroup and security, then add a share definition:

[global]
   workgroup = MYGROUP
   security = user

[samba]
   comment = My samba share
   path = /samba
   browseable = yes
   create mask = 0664
   directory mask = 0775
   write list = @centos

Check syntax with testparm.

5 Start services

systemctl start smb.service
systemctl start nmb.service

smbd

manages shared files and printers; nmbd handles NetBIOS name resolution.

Client Configuration

1 Install client packages

yum install samba-client samba-common -y

2 Test login with smb1

smbclient -L //192.168.29.130 -U smb1

3 Mount the share

mkdir /smb
mount -t cifs //192.168.29.130/samba /smb -o username=smb1,password=1234
df -h /smb

Add an entry to /etc/fstab for automatic mounting at boot:

//192.168.29.130/samba /smb cifs defaults,username=smb1,password=1234 0 0