Re: Best way to enable 'guest' access onto Linux fileserver?

[Jens Knoell <jens@surefoot.com>]

Hi Eve

Eve Atley wrote:

>Sorry if my subject is misleading. What I am hoping to do is give 'guest'
>access to our 'public' directory (home/shared/public and nothing else) for
>consultants who visit us inside the office on a case-by-case basis. This is
>to enable consultants to share files across the network when they visit.
>
>Right now, we use Samba credentials (ie. Somebody/password) on our Redhat 9
>box, and match their computer logon (Somebody/password) to that so people
>don't have to enter a special username/password to connect to our server.
>Therefore, all our employees have their own username/password combo on their
>computers, as well as their own samba username/password that matches.
>
>So say Joe comes in as a consultant, logged in as joe/computerpassword.
>Obviously, when he attempts to access our server, he recieves a prompt
>asking him for a username/password, since no joe/computerpassword exists on
>our Linux box.
>
>So how would you handle this? By creating a guest/guest account on the Linux
>box that allows access to only /home/public, then giving that info to a
>consultant on an as-needed basis? Or some other way?
>
>Thanks,
>Eve
>  
>
I think this is what you're looking for:

[everyone]
   comment = Public guest directory
   browseable = yes
   writeable = yes
   path = /home/shared/public
   guest ok = yes
   public = yes
   printable = no
   force create mode = 0777
   force directory mode = 0777
   create mode = 0777
   security mask = 0777

And in the global section:
   map to guest = Bad User

Make sure the permissions for directory /home/shared/public are 0777.

This configuration literally allows everyone to connect with r/w access, 
no matter what username/password they use.

J