Setting up network-shared folders for Windows

A server running on a local area network can be quite useful as a repository of shared files. If other computers in your local network are running Microsoft Windows, your best choice for setting up a network file server is the Windows standard Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol. Webmin can assist you with setting up network shares of this type by installing and helping you configure the Samba package utilities.

Tip

It wouldn't be a good idea to use Windows file sharing on the open Internet. Computers out in the open are regularly scanned for vulnerabilities of the Windows file sharing protocol and you could fall victim to an attack if an exploit becomes widespread before a security patch is developed and applied on your system.

Make sure that your firewall blocks incoming external network traffic on User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports 137, 138, and 139 as well as TCP ports 137, 139, and 445. All of these ports are used by Windows file sharing...