EXP: Geekbuzz - Share your Warez: Set Up a Secure Server

[NixiePixel]

Geekbuzz - Share your Warez: Set Up a Secure Server

Trying something new this time ? a tutorial! Don't worry, you're gonna love this. Learn the best way to set up a secure network between Linux, Mac and Windows machines all while protecting your pron. (I mean data.)

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[proghead]

I think i actually learned something, so thanks. Still makes you wonder why the default settings aren't the most restrictive to begin with, so normal people can't screw it up for themselves. *shrug*

 

[Ticklefist]

Been watching Nixie for a little over a year now. Glad to see the Escapist picked her up.

 

[synobal]

Love the nixie, she does a great job explaining stuff, and doesn't resort to the drama that so many youtubers resort to draw viewers to their channel.

 

[EclipsiumRasa]

No one else going to say it?

...

Fine. I will. That was bloody complicated. I know there's reasons why there's such depth of options for configuring a network, but really comparing the amount of configuring it takes to achieve an "acceptable, safe default setting" with Samba compared to something like installing DropBox on a Windows or Mac OSX partition is a flipping odyssey, and for much of it I'm blinding following instructions with no clue as to why its important.

I know the saying goes use Ubuntu if you want to learn Ubuntu and use Slackware if you want to learn Linux but nothing about installing Samba felt like it was intended to be used with Ubuntu.

 

[happy_turtle]

No one else going to say it?

...

Fine. I will. That was bloody complicated. I know there's reasons why there's such depth of options for configuring a network, but really comparing the amount of configuring it takes to achieve an "acceptable, safe default setting" with Samba compared to something like installing DropBox on a Windows or Mac OSX partition is a flipping odyssey, and for much of it I'm blinding following instructions with no clue as to why its important.

I know the saying goes use Ubuntu if you want to learn Ubuntu and use Slackware if you want to learn Linux but nothing about installing Samba felt like it was intended to be used with Ubuntu.

Kudos to the author of this video for the content. I've never seen her work but she does a damn fine job of providing a simple walk-through that most people can understand.

However I'm ashamed to admit this but I totally agree with the quote above, I've moved from a linux platform simply because everything was so fricking complicated to learn, and my job only allows me so many hours a day to learn the computor stuff. I'll be damned if I have to learn the lastest rewrite of ImageMagick and the 100+ other ext programs my boss demands and then spend my free hours learning how to do simple folder/file sharing in Ubuntu.

Until the folks making these linux operating systems figure out that not everyone wants to, or is able to, learn how to migrate across they'll just stick with Windows 7. (Or at least wait till Windows 8.2 bugs out and wipes their hard drives leaving them with no other option).

 

[synobal]

No one else going to say it?

...

Fine. I will. That was bloody complicated. I know there's reasons why there's such depth of options for configuring a network, but really comparing the amount of configuring it takes to achieve an "acceptable, safe default setting" with Samba compared to something like installing DropBox on a Windows or Mac OSX partition is a flipping odyssey, and for much of it I'm blinding following instructions with no clue as to why its important.

I know the saying goes use Ubuntu if you want to learn Ubuntu and use Slackware if you want to learn Linux but nothing about installing Samba felt like it was intended to be used with Ubuntu.

It's only complicated if you want to be secure about it. Otherwise it's about as complicated as anything else from Mac/windows.

As someone who knows a good bit about Linux it really doesn't seem that complicated to me, it's just basic groups and permissions something all OSes have, even Windows it's just most people never deal with them even when there is a good reason to.

 

[Weaver]

As someone who uses Linux basically every day, I agree it can be pointlessly obtuse for what seems like no reason at all.

 

[CWestfall]

EDIT: I just realized that I got a couple of technical details wrong in this post, and, while I can't be assed to correct the errors, I'd rather not leave them lying around.

 

[fredorpaul]

Just started watching and all I can think is. Sooo why is this not one of the main shows on the escapist? far more interesting then many of the main shows.

 

[Greg Tito]

Just started watching and all I can think is. Sooo why is this not one of the main shows on the escapist? far more interesting then many of the main shows.

Funny you should say that ...

 

[Slash2x]

Just started watching and all I can think is. Sooo why is this not one of the main shows on the escapist? far more interesting then many of the main shows.

It is almost like The Escapist is thinking about picking up a person with a voice for Linux before the SteamOS launches....

*edit* see do not open a comments section and come back to comment later. The editor comments before you

Just started watching and all I can think is. Sooo why is this not one of the main shows on the escapist? far more interesting then many of the main shows.

Funny you should say that ...

ENGAGE THE RUMOR MILL!

 

[EclipsiumRasa]

No one else going to say it?

...

Fine. I will. That was bloody complicated. I know there's reasons why there's such depth of options for configuring a network, but really comparing the amount of configuring it takes to achieve an "acceptable, safe default setting" with Samba compared to something like installing DropBox on a Windows or Mac OSX partition is a flipping odyssey, and for much of it I'm blinding following instructions with no clue as to why its important.

I know the saying goes use Ubuntu if you want to learn Ubuntu and use Slackware if you want to learn Linux but nothing about installing Samba felt like it was intended to be used with Ubuntu.

It's only complicated if you want to be secure about it. Otherwise it's about as complicated as anything else from Mac/windows.

As someone who knows a good bit about Linux it really doesn't seem that complicated to me, it's just basic groups and permissions something all OSes have, even Windows it's just most people never deal with them even when there is a good reason to.

Right, but as someone who knows a good bit about Linux even the most obtuse scripting needed to achieve the result you want won't be a dealbreaker for you if the functionality is worth it; this is essentially why long time Linux users universally have a "I'll give up using the shell when you can pry it from my cold dead hand" relationship they just don't with a GUI. As percentages of users go this almost certainly reflexs a majority of open source developers but a relative minority of the total number of Ubuntu's users.

None of this is probably news to you or other long term users, so why is it news to anyone that the provided defaults and GUI user-friendliness and layman's configurability for software like Samba is still so poor? Many Linux devs rightly criticised the amount of security headaches the defaults used in Windows softwares were responsible, but just look at the state Samba in 2013.

This isn't an attempt by me being a Windows fanboy pushing an veiled apologist agenda, I'm just wishing that higher standards were demanded for release versions of intuitive GUI based software on Linux.

I completely understand the CLI for a knowledgable user will always have advantages in terms of power and speed over any GUI but releasing a poor GUI offering is not the right way to motivate a user to spend more time learning Linux in depth, especially if its resulting in their system running with poor security from the entire time between first install something and then learning how to configure it like an advanced user would.

 

[Whoracle]

I just don't get the reason behind this video... Why would you install a samba server on your linux box if you wnat to access files on windows boxes? For a centralized file server, yeah, but for box-to-box, simply open FILEMANAGER_OF_CHOICE and type smb://NAME_OF_OTHER_BOX/NAME_OF_SHARED_FOLDER in the path... Maybe install cifs-utils beforehand, depending on the distro, that's it. And if you don't know how to share a folder on Windows, then you also don't know how to access a samba share...

Migrating data is a pull operation, not a push. I pull the data off the old box and onto the new. And there's no system more secure than a system that isn't there...

I completely understand the CLI for a knowledgable user will always have advantages in terms of power and speed over any GUI but releasing a poor GUI offering is not the right way to motivate a user to spend more time learning Linux in depth, especially if its resulting in their system running with poor security from the entire time between first install something and then learning how to configure it like an advanced user would.

What most people don't get is that CLI != Configuration.
People fear the CLI because they fear they'll trigger something bad or just plain don't know the options. In the above case, we're dealing with configs. And let me tell you, as someone who spent 13 hours last friday to get friggin' Exchange/IIS to behave, that a GUI for configuring things is just plain crap. A GUI by it's very design can't replace a config file, unless it BECOMES a config file that's just not viewed through a text editor. And even then it's worse, because you're relying on the GUI working properly, instead of opening plain text files with ANY tool that works with them. Of course, obtuse, cluttered or plain unstructured config files are bad (looking at you, grub2...), too, but if we compare things, let's compare them at their best. And at ANY comparable level, config files always win over GUI-Driven configs, hands down.

 

[thisbymaster]

Well that was overly complicated. It is things like this that make it impossible to get people to use Linux. Think to yourself if you can describe these actions over the phone without seeing the screen, if you cannot then this isn't a operating system for your everyday user. I love Linux but thinking of putting my parents on this would make me consider cutting off my ear just to not talk with them.

 

[AlexanderPeregrine]

Rather than this mess of intermediate-level configuration that assumes skills a person watching this almost certainly doesn't have, I instead recommend getting Amahi 6 [https://amahi.org/].

The cons are that you have to install a fresh Ubuntu 12.04.1 and you're not going to want to use the computer as a desktop, but it doesn't even have to be a good machine. My server is on a six year old Dell piece of crap and it runs just fine.

 

[Whytewulf]

Its not a video intended for me, but I watched to learn a bit, and the instructor provided good insight. Not sure right or wrong, like some of you smarter people, but it led to some good discussion aye. IN this case, I hope she is monitoring this thread, because it would be good to address your concerns, vs. the typical review videos.

 

[Strazdas]

No one else going to say it?

...

Fine. I will. That was bloody complicated. I know there's reasons why there's such depth of options for configuring a network, but really comparing the amount of configuring it takes to achieve an "acceptable, safe default setting" with Samba compared to something like installing DropBox on a Windows or Mac OSX partition is a flipping odyssey, and for much of it I'm blinding following instructions with no clue as to why its important.

I know the saying goes use Ubuntu if you want to learn Ubuntu and use Slackware if you want to learn Linux but nothing about installing Samba felt like it was intended to be used with Ubuntu.

I agree with you. This seems unnecessarely obtuse and much mroe complicated than it ever needs to be. If anything, it shows how little Linux developers have done in comparison to other platforms. If you need to work the terminal to set things up your doing it wrong.
Meanwhile as you mention there are plenty of software like DropBox that does it much easier and without any headache, while keeping the same amount of security (and id argue that in some cases - more).

Still makes you wonder why the default settings aren't the most restrictive to begin with, so normal people can't screw it up for themselves. *shrug*

Default settings always have to be least restricting. If you give most retricting settings as default you are signing your own death warrant. This is because majority of computer users arent smart enough to ever remove these restrictions and will just declare the program as "not working". And they will be very vocal about it.

Capcha: which one is the easiest. Certainly not Samba.

 

[Waaghpowa]

If you need to work the terminal to set things up your doing it wrong.

And if you had paid attention, you would have noticed that, aside from installing 1 piece of software, there was no set up or configuration done from terminal. Everything was done in GUI and terminal was only used to verify that changes were made. She could have easily forgone checking changes, but I would assume that this being a tutorial it would be important to demonstrate.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but Dropbox is file syncing over the internet, correct? This and drop box are not the same thing. This is for the LOCAL network, no files need to be sent over the internet to remote servers and back. Arguably this method is much more secure since it functions within your local network. Which, as someone stated earlier...

It's only complicated if you want to be secure about it. Otherwise it's about as complicated as anything else from Mac/windows.

 

[Whoracle]

If you need to work the terminal to set things up your doing it wrong.

Erm... no. Absolutely not. If you need a graphical interface because your terminal commands are too obtuse to be figured out, you're doing it wrong. If I need a graphics stack (be it X11 or wayland or whatever), a bunch of extra libraries and tools and overall a bunch of added unneeded complexity, then you're doing it wrong. A GUI can be a nice thing, but in no way, shape or form can it ever be better or faster than a GOOD cli. The only thing you NEED a GUI for is graphical programs, but things that are by their very nature text-based don't need a GUI. Period.

And a case example: I can spell a command on the phone. Easy Peasy. But try to tell people over the phone where to find their GUI and to make sure they've clicked (with the right mouse button, no less) on the right spot on a modal interface (i.e. a GUI) and you're going to have a bad time.

It's
"Type f-i-r-e-f-o-x in the black box..."
vs.
"OK, click on the Firefox Icon... The one you use to go on the internet... No, NOT the blue "E"... Aha... No, I don't know where the Firefox Icon is on your desktop... It looks like a fox wrapped around a globe... YES, Mozilla, that sounds about right... NO, Mother, that's your MAIL client... See? It has a phoenix around an envelope, not a fox around a planet... y'know what? I'll just come over..."

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but Dropbox is file syncing over the internet, correct? This and drop box are not the same thing. This is for the LOCAL network, no files need to be sent over the internet to remote servers and back. Arguably this method is much more secure since it functions within your local network. Which, as someone stated earlier...

Also, this. File Transfers over the Internet (onto servers NOT controlled by yourself, no less) are inherently less secure, simply by virtue of the physical path the data has to take.

DropBox and it's various alternatives have their place, but this is an example of "wrong tool for the job". Yes, you can hammer in a nail with a screwdriver, but a hammer is better suited for that, isn't it?