The File sharing menu allows you to enable and configure Samba filesharing. Samba is a Linux clone/replica of Microsoft's SMB (Server Message Block) filesharing protocol. Samba allows FreshTomato to “speak” the same language as Windows so files can be exchanged between Windows and Linux-based systems (such as FreshTomato). This can allow you to use your FreshTomato router as a NAS drive, if you connect USB storage, such as an external hard drive or flash drive.

Microsoft's SMB protocol has been upgraded in recent years to v3. FreshTomato's implementation supports v1 and v2 only. This is more than adequate for basic filesharing operations.

Enable File Sharing:

• No
• Yes, no Authentication
• Yes Authentication Required

For a basic setup, select Yes no authentication. If additional security is needed, it's recommended you select the Yes, Authentication required . Doing so will display two additional fields where a single username and password can be entered.

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Samba protocol version: SMBv1/SMBv2/SMBv1 + SMBv2 - defined the maximum level of SMB supported. Please note it is good practice to enable both SMB1 and SMB2, imposing a version might be a good idea but could lead into scenarios where clients support only one version. This might generate to unwanted logs e.g. like this:

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Disable GRO: GRO (Generic Receive Offload) essentially combines together small packets to then be sent as a single large packet. This optimizes network utilization, but involves extra (sometime unwanted) Reassembly functions. This option is enabled by default, which disables this feature. This is the recommended setting unless you have other, specific requirements.

Workgroup Name: Here, specify the WORKGROUP name (logical grouping) of PCs for devices to be displayed/organized (for Windows peer-to-peer network browsing). Note that the Windows 10 April 2018 (ver. 1803) update eliminated the use of Windows 10 Homegroups. Workgroups, however, still exist in Windows 10/Windows 11.

Client Codepage: Code pages are used by DOS and Windows clients to determine rules for mapping lowercase letters to uppercase letters. Undefined by default can be set in case of case sensitivity issue. To check what Codepage your systems are on (in Windows) run cmd.exe and type chcp to see the current code page.

Network Interfaces: Defines to which local interface the samba service should be bound. (Default: br0).

Samba Custom Configuration: Here you can pass user-defined parameters to the samba process (configured in the smb.conf file). Consult the official samba documentation prior to entering options in this field.

Auto-share all USB Partitions:

• Disabled
• Read Only
• Read-Write
• Hidden Read-Write.

This allows you to configure automatic sharing. As soon as a storage medium is connected to the USB port (with a compatible filesystem) its contents will be shared.

• Read only: Users can only open files and browse the storage content.
• Read-Write: Users have full control on visible content.
• Hidden Read-Write: This is similar to Read-Write, but allows access to hidden content (for example, files starting with a dot (.) .

Options: Instruct your Samba server on additional network roles:
Master Browser: If enable it participate in the Master Browser election (when WINS is not available/defined).
WINS Server: Perform the role of Wins Server on the network. When enable clients will receive this info via DHCP but client with static addressing can point their WINS Server settings to FreshTomato's LAN IP.

Additional Share List

is where you define custom network shares mapping to physical filesystem. Remember this somehow would overlap with the Auto-share all Partition described above.
Share name: This is the share name appearing under the \\WORKGROUP\$routerhostname.
Directory: Defines where the share maps in the real filesystem.
Description: This is a description only and appears when browsing the network. It has no functional role.
Access Level: This is the network level access right (Read Only / Read-Write). You must not confuse this with the filesystem rights, the two interact in a logical AND way (e.g. write on the filesystem AND write on the share is needed).
Hidden: Yes/No - If a share is hidden it will not be visible browsing the network but it will be available/usable if called directly.