Samba no longer follows symbolic links

**Sciamano** · May 13th, 2010

Originally Posted by zdude

I ended up using these three options in the global sections:

follow symlinks = yes
wide links - yes
unix extensions = no

This was the only way that I could follow sym links in Lucid that previously worked in 8.04.

Didn't work for me. Had to add:

force user = USERNAME

in each share section.

**satosh** · May 16th, 2010

Originally Posted by theLured

Thanks I solved it by opening this file

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Then I put this under the [global] section
Note: It's "wide links" and not "wide symlinks"

Code:

follow symlinks = yes
wide links = yes
unix extensions = no

Save it and then run this to restart samba.

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

This worked for me.
Thanks piratebill

Success! Thank you all!

**Blonddeeni** · July 5th, 2010

Thanks to all the previous replies to this thread I've managed to get my samba share working also, but have had to change my /etc/samba/smb.conf even more than the others on this thread.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 on a desktop and a Laptop, and the only way I can get them to do a samba share and follow symlinks is to add the following to both the [global] AND [My.Username] sections of /etc/samba/smb.conf.

follow symlinks = yes
wide links = yes
unix extensions = no

So to repeat, those three lines are in my Global section, and down the end of the file in my Username section. The only other line in my username section is the directory which has the symlinks pointing to the directories I'm willing to share.

Very glad i found this thread.

So that's Samba, ssh and ftp with login working, now to find out what webDav does.

Cheers all.

**SlugSlug** · November 7th, 2011

Originally Posted by theLured

Thanks I solved it by opening this file

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Then I put this under the [global] section
Note: It's "wide links" and not "wide symlinks"

Code:

follow symlinks = yes
wide links = yes
unix extensions = no

Save it and then run this to restart samba.

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

This worked for me.
Thanks piratebill

Thanks!!

**sohmc** · January 5th, 2012

I know this is bumping a new thread, but wanted to post another fix.

It seems that 11.10 that this issue still occurs and the fix to disable unix extensions and enable wide links does not work. The solution to this is a bit more complicated.

The security issue that the article suggests is actually fairly serious. If you are working in an environment where you cannot trust your users, you should consider the solution below:

Edit /etc/fstab. You will need to use sudo as it's a system file.

At the bottom, type in the following line:

Code:

/path/to/directory   /home/user/directory_link   none   bind   0 0

The first parameter is the directory you want to link to. The second directory is the directory you want to link to. This directory should be EMPTY be an actual directory (or folder as is the parlance of Windows users). It should also be placed within the samba share branch you plan on exporting. In this case, I'm sharing my home directory and placed directory_link within it.

The third parameter indicates the type of partition your mounting. In this case, since your just mounting folder, it is set to none. The fourth option indicates the type of mount. Your binding to a directory. The last two are options are for actual partitions so they are set to 0.

Once you add the line to the file, mount the partition:

Code:

sudo mount /home/user/directory_link

Since you placed this in /etc/fstab, it will survive reboots.

**piratebill** · January 20th, 2012

Originally Posted by sohmc

I know this is bumping a new thread, but wanted to post another fix.

It seems that 11.10 that this issue still occurs and the fix to disable unix extensions and enable wide links does not work. The solution to this is a bit more complicated.

The security issue that the article suggests is actually fairly serious. If you are working in an environment where you cannot trust your users, you should consider the solution below:

Edit /etc/fstab. You will need to use sudo as it's a system file.

At the bottom, type in the following line:

Code:

/path/to/directory   /home/user/directory_link   none   bind   0 0

The first parameter is the directory you want to link to. The second directory is the directory you want to link to. This directory should be EMPTY be an actual directory (or folder as is the parlance of Windows users). It should also be placed within the samba share branch you plan on exporting. In this case, I'm sharing my home directory and placed directory_link within it.

The third parameter indicates the type of partition your mounting. In this case, since your just mounting folder, it is set to none. The fourth option indicates the type of mount. Your binding to a directory. The last two are options are for actual partitions so they are set to 0.

Once you add the line to the file, mount the partition:

Code:

sudo mount /home/user/directory_link

Since you placed this in /etc/fstab, it will survive reboots.

that is very clever. Doing it in samba (as far as I understand) only creates a security hole if you have admins who do stupid things. If you (or an admin) creates a sym link to dangerous areas yes that is a problem. Otherwise I don't think there would be any security hole.