The simplest way since you are asking for Ubuntu support is to install Samba (as well as many thousands of apps) using Ubuntu's commandline apt tool. Install from the default repository.

To get to the commandline interface, hit this keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+T.

Then at the run this at the terminal prompt:

$ sudo apt install samba

Edit the/etc/samba/smb.conf file to create the shares you want to provide on the server.

Create the directory you want to share (or use a directory you already have) then add the share to the smb.conf file.

Creating a shared folder:

$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt2/mysharedfolder

Add the share to the server:

Sample share entry (/etc/samba/conf):

[sharedfolder]
        comment = My Server Shared Folder
        path = /mnt2/mysharedfolder
        force user = user1
        writeable = yes
        browseable = yes
        create mask = 0700
        valid users = user1, user2

Change user# for real user names that you have created on your server and created a samba account.

Create the samba account with:

$ sudo smbpasswd -a user1

Other available configurations such as mask are explained in details in the notes of the /etc/samba/smb.conf file. You can also access the manual using the commands man samba or man smb.conf.

After making a change to the /etc/samba/smb.conf be sure to restart the samba server with:

$ sudo systemctl restart smbd

You might consider upgrading your Ubuntu OS to the lastest LTS version, which currently is version 16.04, which will be supported with release updates for the next 5 years. A non lts version will have release updates for less than a year.

But I'm still not able to create a writeable mount, despite having write access without credentials via Thunar smb://.

sudo mount -t cifs //hostname.local/path /mnt/ftp1/ -o guest,rw

rw:

That option is redundant since it's the default.

It makes the mount write-able. Not to anyone only to the owner of the mount which is root.

You have many options:

Replace root as owner with you

This is what the Thunar method of access is doing.

sudo mount -t cifs //hostname.local/path /mnt/ftp1/ -o guest,uid=morbius

Make it so all local users can access the mount:

sudo mount -t cifs //hostname.local/path /mnt/ftp1/ -o guest,dir_mode=0777,file_mode=0666,nounix

You can even make it so that only members of a given group can write to the mount and others can only read:

sudo mount -t cifs //hostname.local/path /mnt/ftp1/ -o guest,uid=morbius,gid=plugdev,nounix,dir_mode=0775,file_mode=0664

morbius can write, all members of the plugdev group can write, and everyone else can only read.

Many possibilities.

But I can't go and see the shared directory or any directories on TIBERIUS

I do NOT want the Linux laptop to be the server as it's only intermittently on the network.

There is a bug in the gvfs backend ( gvfsd-smb-browse ) of your file manager that attempts to access the Win10 host and its share using a dialect of smb ( smb1 ) that Win10 has disabled.

That does not mean you cannot access the Win10 server - you just have to bypass the bug by asking for the host explicitly by its mDNS host name and share name in Thunar:

smb://tiberius.local/share-name

The .local part is something Win10 can now do by default.

This is from https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba_Port_Usage

Identify on which ports and interfaces Samba is listening

You can use netstat to identify which ports Samba and related daemons are listening on and on which IPs:

# netstat -tulpn | egrep "samba|smbd|nmbd|winbind" The following is a snippet of an example output:

tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:139               0.0.0.0:*              LISTEN      43270/smbd           tcp        0      0 10.0.0.1:139     
0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      43270/smbd           tcp        0      0 10.0.0.1:88                 0.0.0.0:*                  

LISTEN 43273/samba tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:88
0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 43273/samba tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:445 0.0.0.0:*
LISTEN 43270/smbd tcp 0 0 10.0.0.1:445
0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 43270/smbd

The above example shows, that the services are listening on localhost (127.0.0.1) and the interface with IP 10.0.0.1 - each on the listed ports (139, 88, 445,...).

Port usage when Samba runs as an Active Directory Domain Controller

Service   Port    protocol

DNS   53  tcp/udp

Kerberos  88  tcp/udp

End Point Mapper (DCE/RPC Locator Service)    135 tcp

NetBIOS Name Service  137 udp

NetBIOS Datagram  138 udp

NetBIOS Session   139 tcp

LDAP  389 tcp/udp

SMB over TCP  445 tcp

Kerberos kpasswd  464 tcp/udp

LDAPS (only if "tls enabled = yes")   636 tcp

Dynamic RPC Ports*    1024-5000   tcp

Global Cataloge   3268    tcp

Global Cataloge SSL (only if "tls enabled = yes") 3269    tcp

Multicast DNS 5353    tcp/udp

• Samba, like Windows, supports dynamic RPC services. The range starts at 1024. If something occupies this port for some reason, it will be a different port (literally walked up from 1024). Remember, that there can be other ports too, which are related to your Samba installation but not provided from Samba itself, like if you run a NTP server for time synchronisation as well.

Port usage when Samba runs as an NT4 Primary Domain Controller

Service   Port    protocol

End Point Mapper (DCE/RPC Locator Service)    135 tcp

NetBIOS Name Service  137 udp

NetBIOS Datagram  138 udp

NetBIOS Session   139 tcp

SMB over TCP  445 tcp

Port usage when Samba runs as a Member Server

Service   Port    protocol

End Point Mapper (DCE/RPC Locator Service)    135 tcp

NetBIOS Name Service  137 udp

NetBIOS Datagram  138 udp

NetBIOS Session   139 tcp

SMB over TCP  445 tcp

Try smbclient -L ip_of_net_interface -U your_user_name. This option allows you to look at what services are available on a server. You use it as smbclient -L host and a list should appear.