Hide a Samba shares in Windows File Explorer?

hoverdonkey
hoverdonkey Posts: 11  Freshman Member
First Anniversary
Is it possible to hide the Samba shares of my NSA325 from the default Windows File Explorer / Network view?  The idea is that anyone plugging into my LAN without permission will not see anything, but those who know the share names could connect.  Ideally the shares would be visible by default to users with access credentials (read and/or write). 

Accepted Solution

  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,788  Guru Member
    250 Answers 2500 Comments Friend Collector Seventh Anniversary
    edited May 2020 Answer ✓
    In Windows a share which name ends on a '$' is by default hidden. Yet I don't know if the NAS will allow you to create such a share.

All Replies

  • Scofield
    Scofield Posts: 18  Freshman Member
    Not sure if this is what you want, but you can refer to user's guide chapter 17 shares for editing
    https://www.zyxel.com/support/SupportLandingSR.shtml?c=gb&l=en&kbid=M-00038&md=NSA325
  • Mijzelf
    Mijzelf Posts: 2,788  Guru Member
    250 Answers 2500 Comments Friend Collector Seventh Anniversary
    edited May 2020 Answer ✓
    In Windows a share which name ends on a '$' is by default hidden. Yet I don't know if the NAS will allow you to create such a share.
  • hoverdonkey
    hoverdonkey Posts: 11  Freshman Member
    First Anniversary
    edited May 2020
    Thanks both for your replies. 

    The manual does not cover this, so far as I can see.

    Further to @Mijzelf 's suggestion, I added a $ to the end of the share name through the NSA325 GUI Sharing\Shares menu... and it worked - i.e. the share disappeared in Windows File Explorer but I could access it by  typing path in the address bar.  Exactly what I wanted.  Thanks again for another beautifully simple solution @Mijzelf !

    For the benefit of anyone else looking, I first tried adding the $ to the share name in the etc\samba\smb.conf file (using WinSCP).  That did make it disappear from Windows File Explorer but I could not access it by typing in the path.  Must be something else going on somewhere else.

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