[SWLUG] SAMBA not allowing me to write

[Stephen Constantinou]

Dear All

I am using my laptop that only has Mandriva 2008 on it and I am having 
some difficulty configuring SAMBA so that I can write to the XP HDD of 
the PC.  I can mount the file system, browse it but not write to it.

I have mounted the file system inside my home directory:
/home/stephanos/dell/.  The icon shows the folder with a red plug on it.
ls -l reveals
drwxr-xr-x 1 root     root       4096 2008-01-07 21:00 dell/

I have tried to use chmod (as root of course) to change the file 
permissions:
  [root at localhost stephanos]# chmod a=rw- /home/stephanos/dell
  [root at localhost stephanos]#

  [root at localhost stephanos]# ls -l reveals
   drwxr-xr-x 1 root   root  4096 2008-01-07 21:00 dell/

Unchanged

So next I turned my attention to the Network Sharing section of Control 
Centre.  There are two relevant icons.  1) Share data with Windows 
system and 2) Manage Samba configuration.

1) Share data with Windows system
Tick in sync, user, user_xattr, noexec nodev.  I have read the 
explanations for each of these but I am out of my depth
2) Manage Samba configuration
File Share tab showed the correct Share directory 
(/home/stephanos/dell/).  There were no entries in the obvious columns 
of Browseable and Writable, only Write list - stephanos, Inherit 
Permissions - yes.
So I set about changing these with the Modify button.  I made the 
Public, Writable and Broweasble all Yes.
The Advanced Options had
  Read List  [         ]
  Write List [Stephanos]
Admin users [         ]
Valid users [         ]

With no clear understanding I added stephanos to Read List.  Saved 
everything and tried ls again:
  [root at localhost stephanos]# ls -l reveals
   drwxr-xr-x 1 root   root  4096 2008-01-07 21:00 dell/
and also tried with Konquror.  Could not write to the dell.
Unchanged.  But I did use Konqueror to test that I could not write and I 
could not.

I decided to check the properties of the /dell/ directory (as a user).
Permissions tab: Though greyed out they showed
  Owner  [Can View and Modify
  Group  [Can View and Modify
  Others [Can View
Ownership: User:  root
            Group: root

Share tab: Tick in Share this folder in the local network
            Tick in Share with Samba, Ticks in Public and Writable

For no good reason I decided to reboot.

I went back into Manage Samba configuration and all the changes I had 
made remained - nice.  So I tried with Konquror.  Could not write to the 
dell.
I checked the chmod as well:
  [root at localhost stephanos]# ls -l reveals
   drwxr-xr-x 1 root   root  4096 2008-01-07 22:42 dell/

That's it, I am at a loss and the edge of my knowledge.

Any help appreciated

Stephen