I've got Samba running on a server OK.

Other computers in the network can use command line commands like "smbget" against the server OK.

But if the same computer uses a GUI file browser like Thunar, and click on Network, the server name does not appear at all.

Any ideas why ? My smb.conf follows...

[global]
workgroup = OURNET
security = user
hosts allow = 192.168.3.0/24

passdb backend = tdbsam

server role = CLASSIC PRIMARY DOMAIN CONTROLLER
guest ok = yes

[photos]
comment = Our Photos
path = /volatile/share/photos
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes

[Music]
comment = MP3 music
path = /volatile/share/Music
browseable = yes
guest ok = yes

Yeah. You need to set up the WSD service on your Samba server:

https://github.com/christgau/wsdd

Alternatively, if you're in a small office, you could just set up a desktop shortcut to the Samba share on all of the client machines... otherwise, if you're in a larger office with an AD server, you could make a group policy object which creates a shortcut on users' desktops.

Without knowing anything about linux distributions or samba versions running on the clients and servers we can only guess. With samba > 4.11 or so SMB v1 network browsing via netbios is now dead. Windows 10+ it has also disabled and or removed. Windows clients now use Windows discovery to find other computers and as posted wsdd is the linux implementation of the Windows Discovery protocol which allows clients to find servers. wsdd does have a client mode but it isn't enabled by default. In addition if the clients and servers are running avahi they should also be able to find each other.

Thanks for the replies.

The server (smbd version 4.14.4) has been built using buildroot-2021.02.3, and is running under Linux 5.4.51. It does not appear to have a wsdd bundled up with it. I will investigate more recent versions and see what is available.

If I start a big smbget somewhere on the network and then do a smbstatus on the server it claims to be using SMB3 protocol.

The server does not have avahi built, but the sources are there. I'll give that a go, and see what happens.

SMB3 = good!

Beware that avahi will only work on Linux clients.

You need the WSD service listed above if you want the shares to be "browsable" by Windows clients.