File Sharing Permissions

[Greg Kettmann]

Would someone be willing to walk me through differences between (old) MS 
CIFS/SMB file sharing permissions and more current *nix/Samba 
permissions?  I've used both extensively, although I "cheat" on the 
Samba, since it's at home and security is not really an issue (so I 
don't use any).

While dating myself, I knew MS/IBM CIFS/SMB from way back.  In that case 
the access control (ACLs) were managed through the file sharing 
mechanism (although they were stored in the file system).  With 
*nix/Samba (I typically use Linux/Samba but am currently testing 
NAS4Free under VMware).  The big difference seems to be... when using 
*nix/Samba, *nix is a multi-user system.  With that in mind I've the 
following questions:

1)  What determines the "user" for file shares (*nix/Samba)(and thus 
what's the proper user/group for the subdir)?
         a)  The Samba process?
         b)  The logged in user (if there is one)?
         c)  When is the "guest" account used (presumably when no one is 
signed on (open shares))?

Using NAS4Free, I mounted a new volume, created users and created shares 
(one open, one private) (Open = browseable, full R/W access for all).

I can browse for and mount the "open" share (from Win7).  I did need to 
logon, but when I try to copy a file to it I get "You need permission to 
perform this action.".  From Linux/Samba I'm almost certain this simply 
a matter of using CHOWN, CHGRP, to change the owner and group of the 
subdirectory tree. In the past I didn't login and simply forced things 
to "guest".  With NAS4Free I'd like to do it right, but am unclear what 
that would be.

Sorry the question got so long.  I appreciate any advice.  Pointers to 
good help documents would be great, but I've looked and haven't found 
them, in part because I'm hindered by my prior experiences.

Thanks in advance and my apologies if this is not the appropriate place 
to ask this question.



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