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Hi all,

This is one thing that I think should be easy but it isn't: disabling Samba. In Windows, there is a checkbox for disabling file sharing, why not KDE?

Under Kubuntu 8.10, KDE 4.2.2 in System Settings, there is no place to find a checkbox that essentially says: "Enable/Disable Samba". Even the detailed "Samba" System Settings panel can configure everything else about Samba, but not this.

This kind of request has popped up over time, as searching Google for advice on how to disable Samba produces this top-rated page. It solves the problem by advising to uninstall Samba, which is what I had to do too. This doesn't seem intuitive, usable or safe ("will my settings be preserved if I want to reinstall?" "will I mess up the uninstallation process and harm my system?" are thoughts I had.) I tried looking for a CLI way to disable Samba, but gave up after I realized that it was out of the scope of my experience.

It would seem that the most logical place to put an "Enable Samba" checkbox would be in the System Settings -> Sharing panel. Actually, it would be more clear to say, "Enable file and printer sharing with Windows users", as the term "Samba" is a technical term that means nothing to newbies, myself included when I came to the Linux ecosystem.

Agreed, I find samba one of the most confusing parts of openSUSE. This is the best openSUSE how to on it with many things to do that are not intuitive (including the KDE parts)...

http://www.swerdna.net.au/linhowtosambaserver.html

Just an idea: could this be solved by lets say network manager or firewall to globally disable/block all file sharing. Usually when we want to disable samba we don't want to disable samba, we want to disable file sharing in general. This also includes other sharing protocols. So we we have to click many buttons,when we could with just one?

O course advanced settings should be possible - to disable one by one protocol or to set fiters per ip ranges

The problem is that samba takes the form of a daemon that is run by root. In opensuse you can enable and disable it in the runlevel module (enable or disable the smb and nmb modules for the server and smbclient for the client), but only root can start and stop daemons like samba. So you would need to supply a root password. Policykit might be able to fix this.

Ideally we need a system settings panel for enabling disabling all daemons. KDE3 had this as part of KDE-guidance, which I think is currently being ported to KDE4.

In yast (openSUSE) you can disable enable any daemons, I don't know how it is in other distros. Anyway more clear way would be nice.

You can do it from the command line in any distro, but I don't know about gui options.

This should not be the responsibility of a DE

pembo13 wrote:This should not be the responsibility of a DE

Why not? What's the difference between a user wanting to enable/disable file and printer sharing with Windows users, and a user wanting to specify their default user name and password when browsing Windows shares? I don't see a big distinction here.

I'm looking at this from the point of view of the user, not a system architect, who might want to partition this problem some other way.

Lukas wrote:Just an idea: could this be solved by lets say network manager or firewall to globally disable/block all file sharing. Usually when we want to disable samba we don't want to disable samba, we want to disable file sharing in general. This also includes other sharing protocols. So we we have to click many buttons,when we could with just one?

I like this idea because it wraps up other problems in its vicinity. My one reservation is that going to the firewall or network manager to "disable" file sharing makes sense for a savvy computer person because we know how a things are strung together inside, but on the other hand it's one step removed from the domain of the problem that the user is trying to solve: "I just want to stop sharing my files with my Dad's PC. Where's the option for that? Why isn't it in the Sharing panel? or Why is it so difficult to change?"

I think your idea would be well-suited as an advanced way to further configure the system. I could see that evolving as another brainstorm idea.

a firewall dbus api?

XandarKablandar wrote:

pembo13 wrote:This should not be the responsibility of a DE

Why not? What's the difference between a user wanting to enable/disable file and printer sharing with Windows users, and a user wanting to specify their default user name and password when browsing Windows shares? I don't see a big distinction here.

If you do not see a difference there, then you do not understand how these tools work. Samba is a system service which runs with system level privileges.

Browsing shares is entirely a per user, client-side activity. KDE should provide client functionality, but it should not be in the business of altering system wide services.

I'm looking at this from the point of view of the user, not a system architect, who might want to partition this problem some other way.

The way these kind of things tend to be solved is by providing an intermediate tool which brokers the request. Similar to how KDE interacts with NetworkManager and HAL

pembo13 wrote:Browsing shares is entirely a per user, client-side activity. KDE should provide client functionality, but it should not be in the business of altering system wide services.

This is not entirely accurate. KDE already provides a partitioning tool, samba server configuration tool, boot loader configuration tool, and printer configuration tool, all of which are system wide services and all of which are integrated directly into systemsettings.

i must say that samba is a very essential tool especially for the DE... samba is for EASY filesharing with other (windows)clients.. every user expects to manage such things like filesharing in a lan with a GUI and thats what KDE should provide.. and no user should be urged to find out thirst what packages he has to install in advance to use these features.. kde should provide all of them out of the box.. sure.. for the systemwide changes you would need root privileges.. but wheres the problem with that?

I released this tool yesterday: I think it satisfies the request.

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/KD ... ent=114050.

Feedback welcome.