Set primary group of file or directory on Samba share from Windows
- by Hubert Kario
Short version:
I have such situation on a Samba share:
$ ls -lha
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x 3 hka Domain Users 4.0K Jan 11 17:07 .
drwxrwxrwt 19 root root 4.0K Jan 11 17:06 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 hka Domain Users 4.0K Jan 11 17:07 dir A
-rw-r--r-- 1 hka Domain Users 0 Jan 11 17:07 file A
How am I able to change this to following using only Windows SMB/CIFS client (using 3rd party applications is OK)
$ ls -lha
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x 3 hka Domain Users 4.0K Jan 11 17:07 .
drwxrwxrwt 19 root root 4.0K Jan 11 17:06 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 hka ntpoweruser 4.0K Jan 11 17:07 dir A
-rw-r--r-- 1 hka ntpoweruser 0 Jan 11 17:07 file A
Rationale and background info
I'm using POSIX ACLs on Samba shares. Together with acl group control for Samba, it allows me to delegate management of permissions to different users based on group membership.
Thing is, when I create a new file on a Samba share, I'm unable to set its primary group (the one that grants permission to change its permissions). It's being set to my primary group (Domain Users) or group set using force group option in smb.conf share definition.
Removing all groups in windows except the one I want to become the new primary group doesn't work. I can change it using chgrp group folder/ as regular user though shell, but it's suboptimal (not all users are *nix users).
Trying to set new owner to group from Windows file permission window makes the Samba to return permission denied with following log entry:
[2012/01/05 21:13:03.349734, 3] smbd/nttrans.c:1899(call_nt_transact_set_security_desc)
call_nt_transact_set_security_desc: file = projects/project A/New folder, sent 0x1
[2012/01/05 21:13:03.349774, 3] smbd/posix_acls.c:1208(unpack_nt_owners)
unpack_nt_owners: unable to validate owner sid for S-1-5-21-4526631811-884521863-452487935-11025
[2012/01/05 21:13:03.349804, 3] smbd/error.c:80(error_packet_set)
error packet at smbd/nttrans.c(1909) cmd=160 (SMBnttrans) NT_STATUS_INVALID_OWNER
The SID is correct and belongs to group I specified in GUI.