Virtual Boxes, Linux hosts, Windows guests, Shared folders and Recycle bins

Question

Basically what I am looking for is a way for sharing folders between my Debian Jessie host and Windows 7 guest without the fear that I accidentally delete files under Windows and have no (convenient) way to restore those files.

I assumed that this is something which can be achieved easily but as it seems it is not at all.

With a bit of googling I found this very detailed workaround at TechNet:

Enable Recycle Bin on mapped network drives

But as it turned out it just seems to work when being in a Windows environment on both sides (and possibly even then not with VirtualBox but e.g. with a regular Windows system with NTFS enabled acting as server). See my and other people comments:

... When deleting a file Windows first asks whether I want to move it to the recycle bin, then it tells me in another dialog I need permission (granted by administrator) and shows a retry button. Then clicking retry fails as the file is already deleted. It does not matter whether Explorer runs as administrator anyways as the behavior is the same ...

So I want to find another solution for this issue - whether it can be achieved with just the guest (like the hack described at TechNet) or involves some changes to the host setup does not matter (for now). I am happy about any input!

I can imagine something like shadow copies at the ext4 file system (if that is possible) or even setting up a file server with Samba (?) at my host and finding a way to map it to the guest.

As you can see I have too less knowledge here ...

Answer 1

Thanks to the answer provided by @harrymc I was able to setup Samba with enabled recycle bin. These are the steps I have made:

1. Disable Virtual Box shared folders

First of all I have disabled any Virtual Box shared folders so that all file sharing is done via Samba configured network shares only - this is no requirement though.

2. Install Samba

I then followed the instructions at https://wiki.debian.org/SambaServerSimple for installing Samba ...

apt-get install samba samba-client

3. Create Samba user

... and then creating a new user with:

smbpasswd -a johndoe

4. Update Samba config

To configure the shared folders I have then updated my /etc/samba/smb.conf with a respective section named [shared] which will map to //debian/shared as the name of the host computer is debian in my case.

[shared]
   path = /home/johndoe/shared
   comment = My Shared Folder
   read only = no
   browseable = yes
   create mask = 0777
   directory mask = 0777
   guest ok = no
   hide files = /.recycle/
   vfs objects = recycle
      recycle:repository = .recycle
      recycle:keeptree = yes
      recycle:versions = yes
      recycle:touch = yes
      recycle:minsize = 0
      recycle:maxsixe = 0

5. Restart Samba

Once I finished the configuration I have saved the file and restarted samba with:

sudo service smbd restart

6. Done

And that's it. Back at the Windows guest I connected to //debian/shared using Windows Explorer and entered the credentials for johndoe as configured before. And now, when deleting a file, I am still asked whether I want to delete it permanently but when confirming with yes the file is actually not deleted but moved to the recycle repository directory.

---

Notes:

I have recognized that deleting an empty folder at guest will remove it permanently at host as well instead of moving to recycle repository directory.

---

Protecting recycle bin ...

Though the hide files = /.recycle/ setting ensures that the recycle repository folder is not visible with Windows Explorer standard settings it is possible to use a recycle repository outside of the shared folder as well - so that no client is able to delete its contents. To set it to /home/johndoe/.shared.recycle I used:

      recycle:repository = ../.shared.recycle

---

Additional configuration

A bit out of scope of this question - but here you can see my complete configuration file. Many of the settings at [global] were initially present after installing samba. But as I always want to know what is actually configured I had a look at https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/smb.conf.5.html manual pages and then changed some of the default settings.

[global]
   workgroup = WORKGROUP
   dns proxy = no
   log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
   max log size = 1024
   syslog only = no
   syslog = 0
   server role = standalone server

   map to guest = Never
   usershare allow guests = no

   pam password change = yes
   obey pam restrictions = yes
   unix password sync = no

   passdb backend = tdbsam
   encrypt passwords = yes
   passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
   passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .


;[homes]
;   comment = Home Directories
;   browseable = no
;   read only = yes
;   create mask = 0700
;   directory mask = 0700
;   valid users = %S

;[printers]
;   path = /var/spool/samba
;   comment = All Printers
;   browseable = no
;   read only = yes
;   create mask = 0700
;   printable = yes
;   guest ok = no

;[print$]
;   path = /var/lib/samba/printers
;   comment = Printer Drivers
;   browseable = yes
;   read only = yes
;   guest ok = no

#[shared]
# ... as shown above

As you can see I have commented [printers] and [print$] sections as I don't want to share my printers for now.

I as well commented the [homes] section. Mainly because I don't know much about the implications in terms of security when having it enabled. If someone wants to elaborate on this here you are welcome!

What I think I do understand is map to guest = Never and usershare allow guests = no will disabled guest access completely.

But I don't know much about the other security related settings shown above. If someone could explain to me what they mean alone or all together that would be great. Especially pam password change, obey pam restrictions and unix password sync are not so clear to me though I have read the respective chapter at man pages:

https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/smb.conf.5.html#PAMPASSWORDCHANGE

https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/smb.conf.5.html#OBEYPAMRESTRICTIONS

https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/smb.conf.5.html#UNIXPASSWORDSYNC

Finally the settings for passdb backend, encrypt passwords, passwd program and passwd chat come with the installation at Debian Jessie per default.

Answer 2

Under Linux, Samba can intercept file deletes and move the files to another repository, using the vfs_recycle module.

See these links :

• The vfs_recycle module
• vfs_recycle example
• Samba vfs recycle feature: clean up script
• tmpwatch - removes files which haven't been accessed for a period of time