Given the budget of next to nothing and the relatively small size of the office, I decided it was best to proceed with a Linux based Samba server. Although their office is 100% Microsoft (a mix of XP and Vista machines), Linux would be a great light weight solution. The added benefit was we re-purposed an ancient workstation (circa 1996) to run the Samba server so no new hardware was purchased and we prevented another machine from polluting a land fill.

We created three shared drives for the business.

1. A share everyone in the office could access
2. A share only the executive could access
3. A share for the exclusive purpose of backing up everyone’s workstation

I simply installed Centos 5.2 distribution on the old workstation, created three distinct user accounts and group permissions, enabled the samba service, and locked down access through iptables firewall.

Creating a secure, readable, smb.conf file was really important to me. Not only for readability but also because I won’t be supporting this server after installation. Any other administrator should be able to walk into the office and quickly & clearly see how to make edits for upgrades or changes.

The smb.conf file:

#smb.conf
 
[global]
	#set up what the end user would see on their desktop
	workgroup = H4LSharedFiles
	server string = common files for H4L
 
	#general user perms
	security = user
	passdb backend = tdbsam
 
	#printing support
	load printers = no
        printing = bsd
        printcap name = /dev/null
        show add printer wizard = no
        disable spools = yes
 
[AllSharedFiles]
	comment = Files for everyone to share
	path = /sambashares/allAccess
	writeable = yes
	browseable = yes
	guest ok = yes
	write list = +allemployees
 
[Backup]
	comment = Files to back up everyone's computer
	path = /sambashares/backups
	writeable = yes
	browseable = yes
	guest ok = yes
	write list = +allemployees
 
[AdminOnly]
	comment = Access for sensitive files
	path = /sambashares/admins
	writeable = yes
	browseable = yes
	guest ok = no
	write list = +administrators