In a LAN environment, you will often need to share the files between different types of machines, such as Windows and Linux machines. The protocol used for sharing the files and the printers among these machines is either the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol or its enhanced version called the Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol. CIFS runs over TCP/IP and it is used by the SMB clients and servers. In Linux, you will find a package called Samba, which implements the SMB protocol.

If you are running a Linux virtual machine within a Windows box with the help of software, such as VirtualBox, then we can test file sharing among the Windows and the Linux machines. Let us create a folder at C:\share on the Windows machine as you can see in the following screenshot:

Now, right-click on the folder and then go to the Sharing tab. There are two buttons: Share and Advanced sharing. You can click on the latter and it will open the advanced sharing dialog box. Now you...