podman-quadlet-cookbook/cookbooks/samba

Podman Quadlet: Samba

Overview

Samba is an SMB/CIFS file sharing server started as a Podman Quadlet. It allows sharing files and directories over the network with Windows, macOS, and Linux clients.

This cookbook:

• Builds a custom Samba container image locally.
• Runs Samba with configurable shares via drop-in configuration files.
• Supports user authentication with system users mapped into the container.
• Includes a timer to periodically rebuild the container image.
• Only starts if at least one share configuration file exists.

Prerequisites

• Share configuration files must exist in /etc/quadlets/samba/smb.conf.d/ with names ending in shares.conf.

Usage

In a separate terminal, follow the logs.

sudo make tail-logs

Install the Podman Quadlets and start Samba.

sudo make clean install

You should see the samba-build.service building the Samba container image. Then, the samba.service should start up.

Verify Samba is running:

sudo systemctl status samba.service

Define a password for a user to access the Samba shares:

sudo podman exec -it samba smbpasswd -a john

Get a list of currently defined users:

sudo podman exec -it samba pdbedit -L

Test connectivity from a client:

smbclient -L //localhost -N

Connect to a share:

smbclient //localhost/sharename -U john

Add a share to /etc/fstab to mount it on boot:

//localhost/sharename /mnt/sharename cifs username=john,password=yourpassword 0 0

Restart the samba.target unit.

sudo systemctl restart samba.target

Finally, remove the quadlets, their configuration and their data.

sudo make uninstall clean

Integration tests

sudo make test