Hands on: Hardy Heron hassle

A problem shared
Further investigation revealed that others had encountered similar problems with the Hardy Heron release of Ubuntu.

Indeed, there were numerous postings on the Ubuntu support forum, many reporting the symptoms I had encountered with Windows workgroup networks, together with others who were having problems browsing shares via Active Directory and on open-source Samba file servers. And it wasn’t just browsing that was affected. Other users reported error messages when trying to directly mount shares from the Nautilus application.

The previous (7.10) version of Ubuntu worked fine and the general consensus was that the culprit was the updated Nautilus software, in combination with the SMB back end for GVFS. More specifically, it appeared to be an issue when those components were used to access SMB shares for which user authentication was required.

This all made sense, as my Nas server allows anonymous browsing and wasn’t affected. When I later reconfigured the Windows XP Pro PC to use simple file sharing - where remote users are authenticated using the local Guest credentials - I could browse and connect to its shares without difficulty.

I was also able to mount the offending shares using the Samba smbmount tool and, ultimately, mount the shares in Nautilus by using the Connect to Server option and supplying a username and password up front. However, even that proved a bit ‘buggy’, with first an error message, then two mounts to the same share created instead of just one.

Not so Hardy
Of course, by the time you read this, there will almost certainly be a fix for this particular issue, possibly along with others, in an expected 8.04.1 release of the Ubuntu software. Still, a bug of this nature is pretty serious, is likely to affect many users and really should have been dealt with during alpha/beta testing. I found postings on the Ubuntu forum describing it as a ‘deal breaker’ from people thinking of upgrading to the 8.04 product. It was still being worked on a month after the 8.04 launch, and you really had to dig deep into support forums to even find out that it had been officially logged as a bug.

I can’t help but wonder what might have been the reaction if a similar bug had been found in a newly released version of Windows. The outcry would, inevitably, have been a lot more voluble. But does that mean a fix would have been issued any more quickly? I’ll leave you to ponder that question. I’m a bit concerned that I might be inundated with emails from outraged users claiming that I’m knocking Linux. Let me assure you that I’m not.

All I want to do is share a recent Ubuntu Linux experience and try to draw a few conclusions from what happened. So, let’s just make it clear again: I’m not looking to grind any kind of axe here and await your emails with interest - not to mention trepidation.

Firewall issues
On a slightly different but related note, I want to emphasise the importance of checking firewall settings when troubleshooting networking problems. This is, again, related to problems that I’ve encountered recently with Linux and network file sharing, but is equally relevant to Windows and other platforms.

The trouble with most desktop firewalls is that to do their job effectively, they need to block a whole lot of traffic you’d really like to get through. When first installed, they tend to take a ‘none shall pass’ approach and are configured to block protocols such as SMB and/or the various TCP/UDP ports that are used to share files.
This shouldn’t be too much of a problem. On a Windows XP or Vista PC, for example, turning file sharing on should automatically cause a suitable firewall exception to be created. However, depending on how you enable networking, this isn’t always the case and, by default, these automatically generated exceptions will only apply to the local subnet.

It’s worth checking your firewall settings and, possibly, adding an exception yourself if it hasn’t already been done for you, or modifying its scope if you have more than one subnet on your Lan. Similarly, if you use a third-party firewall, you may have to program one or more rules manually to allow file-sharing traffic through.
I’ve also noticed the same happening on some recent Linux distros. For example, with Mandriva, I’ve had to explicitly allow file and print sharing in the desktop firewall, or turn the firewall off altogether to make file-sharing applications, such as Samba, visible on the Lan.

Desktop firewalls really can be a pain when it comes to file sharing and, if you have firewall protection for the network as a whole, then turning them off for a while isn’t a huge risk. I now routinely turn off any firewalls that are running on affected PCs and servers when troubleshooting file-sharing problems.

I also check to make sure that there’s only one firewall running, having encountered PCs previously where a third-party product has been installed alongside the Windows firewall.

I urge anyone else to also do the same and to check out the firewall before spending time needlessly chasing other possible causes of any networking problems.