Access a Samba (SMB) share using Windows 7/10 from Open Media Vault (OMV) on Raspberry PI

Using the above combination you will run into these problems and be glad for the often unintuative and infuriating solutions they have:

Problem: Windows Samba usage is too restrictive out of the box and you have to do black magic to get Windows to do the right thing.
I wouldnt even start messing with Samba on Windows until you have done whats on this page linked to from the OMV forum discussion:

Basically put the following chunk in a .reg file, double click on it to run it and get on with your life:

       
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
; Reference: http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Windows7
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanManWorkstation\Parameters]
"DNSNameResolutionRequired"=dword:00000000
"DomainCompatibilityMode"=dword:00000001
; Reference: http://www.tannerwilliamson.com/2009/09/windows-7-seven-network-file-sharing-fix-samba-smb/
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa]
"LmCompatibilityLevel"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0]
"NtlmMinClientSec"=dword:00000000
"NtlmMinServerSec"=dword:00000000

       
 

Problem: If you want your server's name to appear in the Workgroup list on the left pane in explorer you have to do a frickin' song and dance every so often to get it to appear again.

The solution is to go into OMV web interface and in the network settings, rename Host Name, Save and apply and then rename it back to what you actually want it to be, save and apply. In the process the FTP service threw an error and would not restart so I had to revert the changes, disable the ftp service, change the host name, change it back and enable the ftp service again. Phew!

Who knows why this happens. Even the regulars at the OMV forum don't know why it happens here is a thread on it anyway where they don't come to a solution.

Problem: For unknown reasons everything will work until one day windows will give an error indicating "You need permissions from Unix user xxx to make changes"
The solution is to ssh into your OMV server cd into the Samba shares and run
Thanks for the solution found here (again on the OMV forums).

       
chmod -R a+w /media/uuid/sharedfolder
       
 

OMV is a powerful feature rich NAS and is quite simply amazing!
At some point I will write a guide on how to set up a NAS on a raspberry PI using OMV with all the juicy goodies it provides like Sickbeard, Couch Potato, and automatic torrent downloading with Tranmission (not to mention the fact its an awsome stable NAS you can plug an external USB hard drive into and centralise your media storage!

I hope this page helps someone to save some time.

Cheers

Robert