The Blog of Ed Plese

This is a quick guide for setting up a CIFS/SMB file server using Samba within a virtualized zone on SmartOS.  A couple of the many benefits of doing this on SmartOS are that it can utilize ZFS for file storage and also that the file server can be isolated off as a zone and be run in parallel with various other zones and virtual machines.

On to the setup steps…

1. From an installed and running SmartOS system setup a JSON config file for the zone.  I tend to create a directory /opt/vmcfg and place the file there, in this case named samba01.json with the following contents.  When placed in a directory under /opt the files will persist across system reboots.  This sample config uses the base-64 15.1.1 image.  The delegate_dataset=true creates a ZFS filesystem that can be managed within the zone which is a nice feature to have on a file server for separating out users or shares to different filesystems.  The alias, hostname, quota, max_physical_memory, ZFS compression, and network configuration can be updated to your environment.

   {
     "brand": "joyent",
     "alias": "samba01",
     "hostname": "samba01",
     "quota": 50,
     "image_uuid": "0edf00aa-0562-11e5-b92f-879647d45790",
     "max_physical_memory": 1024,
     "delegate_dataset": true,
     "zfs_data_compression": "on",
     "zfs_root_compression": "on",
     "dns_domain": "local",
     "resolvers": [
       "8.8.8.8",
       "8.8.4.4"
     ],
     "nics": [
       {
         "nic_tag": "admin",
         "ip": "10.1.1.211",
         "netmask": "255.255.255.0",
         "gateway": "10.1.1.1",
         "primary": true
       }
     ]
   }
   

2. Create the zone from the configuration file.

   # vmadm create -f samba01.json 
   Successfully created VM 6153d789-5697-4ec6-a237-55198fe3c6b8
   

3. Log into the zone and install Samba.

   # zlogin 6153d789-5697-4ec6-a237-55198fe3c6b8
   # pkgin update
   # pkgin install samba
   

4. Setup the ZFS home directories and move the admin user home directory to a ZFS filesystem.

   # zfs create zones/6153d789-5697-4ec6-a237-55198fe3c6b8/data/home
   # zfs create zones/6153d789-5697-4ec6-a237-55198fe3c6b8/data/home/admin
   # cp -a /home/admin/. /zones/6153d789-5697-4ec6-a237-55198fe3c6b8/data/home/admin
   # rm -rf /home/admin
   # zfs set mountpoint=/home zones/6153d789-5697-4ec6-a237-55198fe3c6b8/data/home
   

5. Create a new user with a separate filesystem for the home directory.

   # zfs create zones/6153d789-5697-4ec6-a237-55198fe3c6b8/data/home/ed
   # chown ed:other /home/ed
   # useradd ed
   

6. Set the user’s Samba password.

   # smbpasswd -a ed
   

7. Optionally edit the Samba config file in /opt/local/etc/samba/smb.conf.
8. Start up Samba.  This will also set it to be enabled at startup.

   # svcadm enable -r smbd
   # svcadm enable -r nmbd

9. From a Windows or other computer connect to the user’s home directory/share as \\10.1.1.211\ed

This will get you a basic file server setup.  From here you can add addition users, shared directories, etc.