samba - Feb 2025 - Help to migrate from Centos 6 3.6.23-51.el6 to Debian 12 12 4.17.12-Debian

Hi everyone, and thanks for Samba.

I've spent several hours trying to migrate a simple Samba configuration 
from an old CentOS 6 box to a new Debian 12 box, using various online 
resources (including nearly all the AI chatbots I could find).

Here's the old CentOS 6 configuration (from |testparm|):

|[global] server string = ..... security = SHARE log file = 
/var/log/samba/log.%m max log size = 50 name resolve order = bcast 
lmhosts host wins client signing = required idmap config * : backend = 
tdb cups options = raw oplocks = No level2 oplocks = No [homes] comment 
= Home Directories read only = No browseable = No [printers] comment = 
All Printers path = /var/spool/samba printable = Yes print ok = Yes 
browseable = No [server] path = /var/server/ read only = No create mask 
= 0777 directory mask = 0777 guest ok = Yes |

The only share used is "server".
|/var/server| is owned by root:root with permissions 777
everything within |/var/server| is owned by nobody:nobody with 
permissions 777

Our issue is that Windows 11 clients are prompted for a username and 
password when connecting to the new Debian 12 box, but they aren't when 
connecting to the old CentOS 6 box.
I'm trying to determine if a completely anonymous share like this is 
still possible in Debian 12 with the newer Samba version.
It seems like it should be, but none of the configurations I've tried so 
far have worked.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards

On Thu, 6 Feb 2025 16:44:53 +0100
Lorenzo Fiorini via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> Hi everyone, and thanks for Samba.
> 
> I've spent several hours trying to migrate a simple Samba
> configuration from an old CentOS 6 box to a new Debian 12 box, using
> various online resources (including nearly all the AI chatbots I
> could find).
> 
> Here's the old CentOS 6 configuration (from |testparm|):
> 
> |[global] server string = ..... security = SHARE log file = 
> /var/log/samba/log.%m max log size = 50 name resolve order = bcast 
> lmhosts host wins client signing = required idmap config * : backend
> = tdb cups options = raw oplocks = No level2 oplocks = No [homes]
> comment = Home Directories read only = No browseable = No [printers]
> comment = All Printers path = /var/spool/samba printable = Yes print
> ok = Yes browseable = No [server] path = /var/server/ read only = No
> create mask = 0777 directory mask = 0777 guest ok = Yes |
After I unpicked that, it became clear that your version of Samba on
Centos 6 is that old, it still had 'security = share', this no longer
exists

Try this smb.conf:

|[global]
 server string = .....
 security = USER
 log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m 
 max log size = 50 
 client signing = required 
 cups options = raw 
 oplocks = No 
 level2 oplocks = No
 # without the following line guest shares don't work
 map to guest = bad user

[server]
 path = /var/server/ 
 read only = No 
 create mask = 0777 
 directory mask = 0777 
 guest ok = Yes

Rowland