Month: November 2017

Installing And Using Samba Shares On Linux

22 November 2017

To install samba capabilities on your Linx box, run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin

This will run off an install process, note that it may ask you if you’re sure about installing this, press y to accept and continue.

Now edit the samba configuration file using:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Go all the way to the end of the file and add the following lines…

  • [share]
  • comment=Pi Share
  • path= DIRECTORY LOCATION e.g. /mnt/library
  • browseable = yes
  • writeable = yes
  • only guest = no
  • create mask = 0777
  • public = no
  • guest ok = no

 

At this point your may need to restart the smb service using the following command:

sudo service smbd restart

You may need to know the IP address of the Linux share in order to access it, you can do this by using “ifconfig” and looking for something along the lines of “192.168…” on the eth0 interface”

To access the share using the Windows and R key to bring up the run dialog box and type in the IP address of the Linux box or its hostname. It would now ask you for credentials, here you should use your regular Linux credentials.

You can see this below:

Credentials Prompt

Once it has accepted my credentials I get the following:

Samba Share

Hopefully, you get the same as I did, if not then leave a comment. Enjoy!

 

Better Credentials Checking in PowerShell

03 November 2017

This is something that I have recently created so that when a script asks for a credentials and there is an error, it doesn’t display a big, ugly and often intimidating error message for any poor soul trying to run my scripts.

That’s why I have recently (as in yesterday) “created” a “fool proof” way of entering and validating credentials against a domain.

This was a problem because whenever someone ran my script and did ANYTHING other than enter perfectly correct credentials, it would throw and error and exit the script. Or even carry on with the script WITHOUT THE CREDENTIALS, which obviously wouldn’t work. I know, I know. Amateur hour! But it was a crap system I must admit.

That’d why I spent and hour or so creating this beauty! It captures any errors, such as null credentials and incorrect credentials and only continues if a user exists with the same samaccountname as the one entered at the credentials prompt and if the user is in the domain admins group. Just for added “security”. Really I just want the appropriate people to be using the script.

This is the code I use!

#PROMPTING FOR CREDENTIALS
$cred = $host.UI.PromptForCredential("Need credentials", "Please enter your username and password.", "", "")
if ($cred -ne $null -and $cred -ne ''){
 #CHECKING IF THE CREDENTIAL USERNAME EXISTS
 $check = $(try {Get-ADUser -Identity $cred.UserName} catch {$null})

  if ($check -ne $null){
  #GETTING CREDENTIAL USERNAME GROUPMEMBERSHIP
  $checkadmin = Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership -Identity $cred.UserName
  $checkadminrefined = $checkadmin.SamAccountName
  #PUTTING GROUP MEMBERSHIP INTO AN ARRAY
  $array = $checkadminrefined
  #CHECKING IF USER GROUP LIST CONTAINS DOMAIN ADMINS
  if ($array -contains "Domain Admins"){
   Write-Host "Credentials are GOOD! - Continuing with script" -ForegroundColor Green
   Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
  }else{
   #RESULT IF USER IS NOT DOMAIN ADMINS
   Clear-Host
   Write-Host "Credentials are not a domain admin! - Close and start again" -ForegroundColor Red ;
   $x = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
   Exit
  }
 }else{
  #RESULT IF NO USER CAN BE FOUND FROM CREDENTIAL USERNAME
  Clear-Host
  Write-Host "Check is empty - No user found matching credentials supplied! - Close and start again" -ForegroundColor Red
  $x = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
  Exit
 }
}else{
 #RESULT IF PROMPT IS CLOSED / NO CREDENTIALS SUPPLIED
 Clear-Host
 write-host "No credentials supplied - Close and start again" -ForegroundColor Red
 $x = $host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
 Exit
}

You should be able to read the script and see which each part does. I left comments in the script which I don’t normally do since it might be easier for you to see what its doing with pointers at each stage.

Enjoy!