Linux Network Folder¶

Check out the video below, and follow along with the steps in this guide to setup a Network Folder on your Linux machine, such that you may create encrypted, private backups of all your StartOS data.

1. Install Samba if you have not already:

   sudo apt install samba && sudo systemctl enable smbd
   

2. Add your user to samba, replacing $USER with your Linux username.

   sudo smbpasswd -a $USER
   

   First you will be prompted for your linux password, then you will be asked to create a new SMB password for the user with permission to write to your new backup share. Keep it somewhere safe, such as Vaultwarden.

3. Right-click the folder that you want to backup to (or create a new one) and click “Properties”

   

4. Select the “Local Network Share” tab

   

5. Click “Share this folder”

   

   • You may rename the “Share”, if you prefer - remember this name, you will need it later in the StartOS dashboard

   • (Optional) Create a description in the “Comment” section

6. In case your installation of Ubuntu is running a firewall by default or due to your own custom configuration, enter this command to allow connections to Samba. If it generates an error, you can safely ignore it:

   sudo ufw allow Samba
   

1. Install Samba if you have not already:

   sudo apt install samba && sudo systemctl enable smbd
   

2. Add your user to samba, replacing $USER with your Linux username.

   sudo usermod -a -G sambashare $USER
   sudo smbpasswd -a $USER
   

   First you will be prompted for your linux password, then you will be asked to create a new SMB password for the user with permission to write to your new backup share. Keep it somewhere safe, such as Vaultwarden.

3. Right-click the folder that you want to backup to (or create a new one, eg. start9-backup) and click “Sharing Options”

   

4. Enter a Share name consisting of 12 or fewer characters and click “Create Share”

   

   • You may rename the “Share”, if you prefer - remember this name, you will need it later in the StartOS dashboard. In this example, we call it backup-share

   • (Optional) Create a description in the “Comment” section

5. In case your installation of Mint is running a firewall by default or due to your own custom configuration, enter this command to allow connections to Samba. If it generates an error, you can safely ignore it:

   sudo ufw allow Samba
   

1. Install Samba if it is not already installed.

   • sudo pacman -S samba For Arch

   • sudo apt install samba For Debian-based distros (Pop-OS, PureOS, etc)

   • sudo yum install samba For CentOS/Redhat

   • sudo dnf install samba For Fedora

2. Create a directory to share or choose an existing one and make note of its location (path). For this example, we will call the share backup-share and its corresponding shared directory will be located at /home/$USER/start9-backup. Replace $USER with your Linux username below.

mkdir -p /home/$USER/start9-backup

sudo semanage fcontext --add --type "samba_share_t" "/home/$USER/start9-backup(/.*)?"
sudo restorecon -R /home/$USER/start9-backup

3. Configure Samba by adding the following to the end of the /etc/samba/smb.conf file:

   [backup-share]
       path = "/home/$USER/start9-backup"
       create mask = 0600
       directory mask = 0700
       read only = no
       guest ok = no
   

   Where:

   • [backup-share] is the Share Name inside brakets, and can be called anything you’d like. We used backup-share in this example.

   • path should be the path to the directory you created earlier

   Copy the remainder of the entry exactly as it is

4. Open a terminal and enter the following command, replacing $USER with your Linux username:

   sudo smbpasswd -a $USER
   

   This creates a password for the Local Network Share. Keep it somewhere safe, such as Vaultwarden.

5. In case your installation of Linux (Pop-OS users take special note!) is running a firewall by default or due to your own custom configuration, enter this command to allow connections to Samba. If it generates an error, you can safely ignore it:

   sudo ufw allow Samba