Just installed fresh Linux on my older laptop today. It's one of versions of Ubuntu. Was pretty surprised that to access files on my Duo SPARC it was not necessary do to give any credentials. As there was firmware No 4.1.10 on my Duo I decided to upgrade urgently to 4.1.13. And the result seems the same - Ubunto can access all shares created by me on my Duo without bothering about CIFS credentials. The only share it cannot access is addons-config. User credentials on Ubuntu are different to that on Duo. Checked one more time with Windows XP, Windows 7 and Android - without giving proper credentials no access to the shares.
Ok, I think I found it 🙂 It seems it's just about "Allow guest access" in CIFS settings.
In other systems even if guest access was on, there was prompt for credentials first. In Ubuntu there is no prompt for credentials, just read-only access. If you want to write, then you have to give credentials.
...In other systems even if guest access was on, there was prompt for credentials first. In Ubuntu there is no prompt for credentials, just read-only access. If you want to write, then you have to give credentials.
I think there are always credentials presented by the OS, though they may be "guest" or "anonymous".
The NAS attempts to use those credentials when they are presented. In the case where guest access is allowed, there are three scenarios: (a) the username exists on the NAS and the password matches. In this case, you silently get logged in, with the access for that user. (b) the username exists on the NAS but the password doesn't match. In this case the login fails, and you are prompted for a user/password (c) the username does not exist on the NAS. You are silently given guest access.
So even with guest access enabled, there is a scenario where a username/password prompt is still required.
