Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 188390
Samba shares do not work by default
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:30 EST
Description of problem: Due to iptables blocking incomming samba trafic by default, samba shares don't work without difficult iptables reconfiguration. Sys-config-samba does not warn in anyway about the problem, so the user is left with a network that does not work, without any clue as to what may be the problem. Expected results: Intallation of the samba packages should provide the option to open ports. If that is not possible, sys-config-samba should provide the option.
How is this "not a bug"???
This is not a bug in the configuration tool for Samba (or Samba itself) because: - It is possible to break almost any application by misconfiguring the firewall. - It is far from trivial to detect such wrong configuration reliably for a single application. For instance (and this is just one example), a failed check to reach a specific TCP port can be due to the firewall or SELinux. - The user is asked about the firewall setting either during installation or the first boot process (depends on the Fedora version). Therefore the argument that he wasn't aware of it doesn't really count. Like SELinux, a firewall is a Mandatory Access Control system where rules are kept separate from the governed object (the Samba server app in this case). You should've been asked about its settings during installation or the first bootup. It would've been easy to enable Samba at that point (or during a later point with system-config-securitylevel). I don't buy the argument that system-config-samba or samba itself should somehow make up for that omission ;-).