I am only able to share from ~/Public, but using the Nautilus UI to share other folders, does not work for me. Even trying to open a shared folder from the same desktop computer itself, after having configured it in the Nautilus UI as shared, doesn't work. Even went as far as trying guest access :)
Is this a Nautilus feature that just isn't supposed to work? What might be the problem?
Here's the list of steps I've gone through to get sharing working on my machine.
1) Install samba
sudo apt-get install samba
2) add myself to group sambashare (which is listed in /etc/group; most likely this is the root of your problem)
sudo usermod -a -G sambashare myusernamehere
3) reboot
4) Make sure ports 139 (netbios-ssn) and 445 (microsoft-ds) were open after installation and reboot with nmap (optional step, maybe skipped)
5) created a test folder in my home directory , with nautilus. Alternatively could have done same with mkdir ~/test. Right-click, Properties, Local Network Share tab, check Share This Folder and Guest Access
6) On the left-side panel of nautilus click Connect to Server. In Server Address field enter ip -address of your machine smb://192.168.X.XX, connect. You should be able to see test folder appear in the nautilus window titled Windows Shares on 192.168.X.XX
Hope this helps ! Best of luck !
Sources:
File Sharing Not Working on Lan
It is very sneaky to humble me what the problem may be, and I experience this problem only on one box... This is not really an answer, but I suffice with using scp to copy over what I need, rather than establish a share, for that box. For another box I have, sharing through Nautilus just works. I leave it at that.
