Native Support For Windows File Sharing Coming To Chrome OS (arstechnica.com) 51
Chrome OS 70, which Google plans to release in the second half of next month, will include native support for SMB file shares, giving it built-in access to files stored on Windows servers. With this, Chrome OS users can add SMB file shares to the Files app and use them to store and load documents. From a report: Currently, using these network resources requires the use of an extension that adds a similar ability to add file shares to the Files app. Google has been working to make Files a more capable application. As well as integrating support for networked files, the company is also experimenting with giving it more access to Android files, something that will streamline the use of Android applications by exposing their data files to Chrome OS apps. The SMB support helps smooth a pain point when mixing Chromebooks with other systems: it makes it easier to use Chrome OS with corporate file servers, home networked storage devices, and of course, Windows PCs. Instead of needing the extra extension to be installed, these things will just work out of the box.
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Pssst... Firefox is predominantly funded by Google. They'll still know exactly what you got on your computer.
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Better interoperability between systems is good (Score:2)
I don't know why... (Score:3)
Re:I don't know why... (Score:4, Informative)
It's for ChromeOS not Chrome.
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Indeed. I'm sure this is just some custom build of Samba, probably with a dead-simple log in interface (not that Samba is all that hard to connect to Active Directory these days). It's an interesting option, and I might even consider it for some of our systems where something like Google Docs would be more than sufficient.
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Yes, it's a wrapper around libsmbclient. Works well !
Feel free to ask me any questions you might have.
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No problem. Samba is still a really fun and interesting program to work on ! I'm going to be up in Redmond next week working with Microsoft engineers on adding POSIX compatibility to SMB3+ and then at the SNIA Conference in Santa Clara, CA the week after giving a couple of talks, and attending the SMB3 plugfest (where we get to work out all the interoperability bugs with other engineers working on SMB).
https://www.snia.org/events/st... [snia.org]
See you there ! :-).
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I actually don't use a Chromebook myself, I have a Linux laptop instead so can't give you screenshots.
For single sign-on you'll need to have your Chromebook joined to the AD Domain (also using Samba underneath).
Reconnection on restart isn't there yet, but is an obvious enhancement to consider (don't want to comment on future product plans).
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...It's for ChromeOS not Chrome....
oops, my bad. Thanks for the correction! (though I still think browsers are getting too complex. JavaScript, I mean, what are they thinking...)
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Pay attention.... They added the SMB capability to the Files app, not the Web Browser app.
Lets get IE 5 and Active X again. (Score:2, Interesting)
I am all for new features. But giving the browser more access to the file structure and networked files, reminds me of the Windows 98 Lets integrate the browser in the OS and the old Netscape, Lets make the browser the OS methodology.
If your browser can do it natively, then you are opening the door for outside sites that use the browser to do it as well. It reminds me of when Active X came out to compete with Java Applets. One of its big selling points was the ability to open and save files. And used a
Re: Lets get IE 5 and Active X again. (Score:4, Informative)
But giving the browser more access to the file structure and networked files, reminds me of the ...
Chrome OS is not a browser. The "OS" part of the name kinda gives it away.
Re:Lets get IE 5 and Active X again. (Score:4, Informative)
Linux? (Score:3)
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Nope. It's just a FLOSS wrapper around FLOSS libsmbclient.
Nothing proprietary here.
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You can. Chromebooks have "developer mode" which allows you control of the box yourself. It's required by the licenses of the code inside.
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It uses the smb url syntax that the Gnome nautilus and KDE file browers use. See here for details:
https://www.samba.org/samba/do... [samba.org]
Although the smb:// bare syntax for browsing won't work as NetBIOS is (or should be) dead, dead, dead :-).
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Because most users wouldn't be able to configure it properly to work. It probably is Samba underneath, but has an interface and configures all the default settings to make it easier for people to user. I set up a Ubuntu box last weekend and was reminded just how non-user-friendly things can be on Linux. Using the UI, it found my windows machine, but even after typing in my user name and password, it didn't show any of the shared folders. I remember other issues where you could mount the folder, but then yo
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Re:MS CAL licenses? (Score:4, Informative)
Don't wanna pay for Microsoft CALs ? Use Samba4-Active Directory.
Problem solved :-).
Android next, please (Score:1)
Great. Can we have the same facility for Android, too?
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I personally use ES file explorer on my Android devices. It has libsmbclient built in (although they make you pay rent to get access to SMB2, which I think is a bit of a crock personally).
I watch movies & TV on my tablet PC at home using this.
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I used to enjoy ES File Explorer back in the Android 4.0 days, but today I can't stand all the constant updates with useless bloatware, adverts, and anti-features. Finally just uninstalled it for good.
Google themselves made third party file explorers pretty much worthless on unrooted Android, since apps do not have access to write to the SD Card anymore. It wasn't too big a deal when I could use official vendor supplied methods to root my device, but now vendors have locked things down so tight that I'd hav
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Yeah, I afree about the anti-features. It has one really good feature though, in that it uses libsmbclient to access a local fileshare, then re-exports it as a web interface to allow media players to use it. That's a killer feature for me.
I think vlc on Android can also do this, but they ship their own SMB client code I think.
NFS ? (Score:2)
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Could be done - you'd need to write a wrapper (probably around Ronnie's libnfs. If you want to do it take a look at the wrapper code created for libsmbclient.
https://github.com/sahlberg/li... [github.com]