How to share a folder on Ubuntu to Raspberry Pi 3 over local WiFi network?

I am planing to buy RaspberryPi 3 and have it connected to my TV. I also have a lot of movies on Windows partition in my dual boot Ubuntu 14.04 & Win 8 machine (Win 8 isn't used, but is there). I would like to share the movies folder to RaspberryPi over my WiFi, so that I can watch movies on TV without loading the movie file to RaspberryPi.

Can this be done and how?

3 Answers

my favourite method is via SSHFS.

1. Install openssh server on your Ubuntu machine: sudo apt-get install openssh-server

2. Install sshfs on the Raspberry Pi (don't know the package name for the distro you're running), in Ubuntu:sudo apt-get install sshfs

3. Connect to your ssh server by mounting a folder:sshfs username_on_server@server_ip:/location_of/movies_on_Server /mountpoint/on_rasberry_pi

4. You might have to add your Rasberry Pi user to the fuser group: sudo useradd -G {group-name} username

5. to unmount the remote folder: fusermount -u /mountpoint/on_rasberry_pi

Enjoy.

In addition to the above, you could use samba shares. Instructions are here.

This is definitely supported by KODI (openELEC, Osmc or other), which is what I would install on the raspberry pi, if you want to use it as a media player for the TV, and resembles my setup.

(Though I think kodi also sees NFS)

Here is a summary of the instructions (credit goes to the original author):

Procedures

Install Samba

 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install samba

Set a password for your user in Samba

 sudo smbpasswd -a <user_name>

Note: Samba uses a separate set of passwords than the standard Linux system accounts (stored in /etc/samba/smbpasswd), so you'll need to create a Samba password for yourself. This tutorial implies that you will use your own user and it does not cover situations involving other users passwords, groups, etc...

Tip 1: Use the password for your own user to facilitate.

Tip 2: Remember that your user must have permission to write and edit the folder you want to share.

 Eg.: sudo chown <user_name> /var/opt/blah/blahblah sudo chown :<user_name> /var/opt/blah/blahblah

Tip3: If you're using another user than your own, it needs to exist in your system beforehand, you can create it without a shell access using the following command : sudo useradd USERNAME --shell /bin/false

You can also hide the user on the login screen by adjusting lightdm's configuration, in /etc/lightdm/users.conf add the newly created user to the line :

 hidden-users=

Create a directory to be shared

mkdir /home/<user_name>/<folder_name>

Make a safe backup copy of the original smb.conf file to your home folder, in case you make an error

sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf ~
Edit the file "/etc/samba/smb.conf"
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Once "smb.conf" has loaded, add this to the very end of the file:

 [<folder_name>] path = /home/<user_name>/<folder_name> valid users = <user_name> read only = no

Tip: There Should be in the spaces between the lines, and also there should be a single space both before and after each of the equal signs.

Restart samba:

sudo service smbd restart

Once Samba has restarted, use this command to check your smb.conf for any syntax errors

testparm

To access your network share

 sudo apt-get install smbclient # List all shares: smbclient -L //<HOST_IP_OR_NAME>/<folder_name> -U <user> # connect: smbclient //<HOST_IP_OR_NAME>/<folder_name> -U <user>

To access your network share use your username () and password through the path "smb:////" (Linux users) or "\\\" (Windows users). Note that "" value is passed in "[]", in other words, the share name you entered in "/etc/samba/smb.conf".

 Note: The default user group of samba is "WORKGROUP".

It can be done with NFS.

This is useful to read about: How do I mount directories from other Linux/Unix/BSD servers? How do I mount an NFS share?

How to setup NFS in Ubuntu: SettingUpNFSHowTo

Ubuntu NFS Server Configuration

Below example shares Public directory (located in pba user home directory) to 10.0.0.1 IP address

Install NFS Server

sudo apt-get install rpcbind nfs-kernel-server

Make sharing directory and set permissions

mkdir -p ~/Public
chmod 777 ~/Public

Add new share to /etc/exports

echo "/home/pba/Public 10.0.0.1(rw,sync,no_subtree_check)" | sudo tee -a /etc/exports

rw makes the share read/write, and sync requires the server to only reply to requests once any changes have been flushed to disk. This is the safest option (async is faster, but dangerous. It is strongly recommended that you read man exports.

Export new share

sudo exportfs -ra

Restart NFS kernel server

sudo service nfs-kernel-server restart

Server is now ready.

Raspberry Pi Client Side Configuration

In below example 10.0.0.12 is a NFS server IP address with /home/pba/Public share

Install NFS, portmap and start services

sudo apt-get install nfs-common portmap
sudo service rpcbind start
sudo update-rc.d rpcbind enable

Make mount directory and mount NFS

mkdir ~/Public
sudo mount -v -t nfs 10.0.0.12:/home/pba/Public /home/pi/Public

Seeing results:

$ cd ~/Public && ls
Ubuntu file Ubuntu file~

Add line to /etc/fstab to make changes permanent

echo "10.0.0.12:/home/pba/Public /home/pi/Public nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr 0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

For Windows

I've download FreeNFS for Windows. FreeNFS path set to C:\Public.

To mount FreeNFS share mount need to be done like this

sudo mount -v -t nfs 10.0.0.12:/ /home/pi/Public