SMBUp and Sharing Only accounts

[prl]

OK, now I need help with Windows Sharing on the Beyonwiz

I've just installed SMBUp on my MacBook Pro (OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion) to get around the problem that the Lion (10.7) and later OS X Samba servers can't be accessed from the Beyonwiz.

In my pre-Lion setup (10.6.x and earlier), I had an OS X Sharing Only account reserved for connecting the Beyonwiz to the shares I wanted it to see. However, there doesn't seem to be any way to tell SMBUp the password for Sharing Only accounts. Even If I temporarily change the account from Sharing Only to Standard. Even if I re-install and re-configure SMBUp with the Beyonwiz's account changed to Standard.

I can see the shares if I allow Guest access to them, but then they're read-only from the Beyonwiz.

Has anyone got SMBUp working so it allows the Beyonwiz to connect as a Sharing Only user rather than Guest?

[prl]

OK, I've got a workaround to this.

Simply create a Sharing Only account in the usual way (say, Full Name MyWiz and Account name mywiz), then once the account is created, Ctl-click on the new account and select Advanced Options..., then change the entry in Home Directory from /dev/null to /Users/mywiz. The folder /Users/mywiz need not actually exist Then click OK.

Read the dire warnings in the Advanced Options panel. What I've described worked for me. You're on your own. Despite what the warning says, I didn't need to restart my Mac (or do anything more than what I've described). I don't think there are any security implications to doing this, but I'm not certain.

It may be possible to make an existing Sharing Only account play nice with SMBUp by changing the Home Directory in a similar manner.

This is pretty bizarre behaviour!

Once that's set up, you'll want to set the permissions on your shared folders (in the finder), and set up the user permissions for the file sharing service in SMBUp. The latter isn't much fun unless you're already familiar with smb.conf, because he Advanced Server Configuration and Advanced Shared Disk Settings are just a prettified, but brutally direct view of the smb.conf file

Edit: I've emailed SMBUp's author about this problem.