How do I add myself to the "staff" group for a samba share?

Question

Hi all,
I've been struggling with this for a few hours now. I searched but could not find the answer (neither here nor google).
I am trying to set up a samba share on my raspberry pi and have it accessible by all other computer on my local network (just a home network). I want it set up so that when I access the share via my linux desktop I have read/write privileges, but when other users (my family, variety of linux and windows machines) access it they have read-only access and do not have to enter a password. I am not sharing any printers. The raspberry pi and my desktop are both running arch.
I am currently able to mount the share, but I only have read-only access. In the smb.conf file it has a pre-configured section for A publicly accessible directory, but read only, except for people in the "staff" group, which is the section I have tried to use. My user name on my desktop is 'gav', and I have created a user with the same name on the pi. On both the pi and the desktop I have added 'gav' to the staff group (using groupadd and usermod -aG).
On Windows machines: a Windows 7 desktop found the share and prompted for a password, I entered my password (as 'gav') and could access files, but read-only. A windows 8 laptop couldn't see it at all.
Here are some outputs of some things:
testparm (on the pi)
Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
rlimit_max: increasing rlimit_max (1024) to minimum Windows limit (16384)
params.c:Parameter() - Ignoring badly formed line in configuration file: i
Processing section "[sharedfiles]"
Loaded services file OK.
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE
[global]
workgroup = PISERVER
server string = Shared Media
log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
max log size = 50
dns proxy = No
idmap config * : backend = tdb
[sharedfiles]
comment = Proper share
path = /mnt/sambashare
write list = @staff
guest ok = Yes
I'm not sure which is the 'badly formed line', any idea how I find out?
smbtree (on desktop)
WORKGROUP
PISERVER
\\PI Shared Media
\\PI\sharedfiles Proper share
\\PI\IPC$ IPC Service (Shared Media)
ASUSROUTER
smbclient -L PI -U% (on desktop)
Domain=[PISERVER] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 4.1.0]
Sharename Type Comment
IPC$ IPC IPC Service (Shared Media)
sharedfiles Disk Proper share
Domain=[PISERVER] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 4.1.0]
Server Comment
PI Shared Media
Workgroup Master
ASUSROUTER DSL-N55U
PISERVER PI
WORKGROUP SHODAN
command I entered to mount share (as root)
mount -t cifs //PI/sharedfiles /media/pi -o user=gav,password=pass,workgroup=PISERVER,ip=192.168.1.199
Any help would be appreciated, please let me know if there are any more outputs I can provide.
Thank you for reading
Last edited by gav989 (2013-11-10 13:34:46)

Answer 1

Consider using sshfs to mount your Pi from your Linux boxes.  It's much easier to configure and manage than samba.  It sounds like you already have your Windows machines mounting your Pi so Samba is doing its job in that respect.
More info on sshfs in the Wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sshfs
To help get you off the dime, here's a modified line from my fstab that I use to mount my Pi with:
gav@PI:/mnt/backup /mnt/rpi/backup fuse.sshfs rw,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other 0 0
Subsitute my mount points with yours.
For a password-less mount:
     ssh-copy-id gav@PI
after you've set up ssh and generated some keys on your client box.
Here are some relevant lines from the smb.conf file on my Pi that I use for my one Windows box in the house that might help you with your write permissions:
   security = user
  hosts allow = 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0
  guest account = gav
; And my share setup:
[rpi]
   comment = Public Stuff
   path = /mnt
   writable = yes
;   printable = no
;   write list = @krb
[torrent_dl]
   path = /mnt/video/torrent_dl
   writable = yes
   create mask = 0770
   directory mask = 0770
   guest ok = Yes
   case sensitive = No
   read only = No
Hope this helps.