Ubuntu Server 12.04: Write Files via Samba with Group Ownership

Question

I have a shared samba drive set up on my virtual machine guest running Ubuntu Server 12.04.

\\ubuntu\www

The file path /var/www has the permissions www-data:www-data set up. My user name abe is part of the group www-data.

I am using a Windows XP Host machine and I do my development using my host machine, but I just save the files to the samba shared \\ubuntu\www.

When I do so, the file owner gets set to my username abe, which is expected...

Question: is there a way to set up my samba shared at \ubuntu\www to write to my group (www-data) instead of my username?

Here is what my samba configuration file (/etc/ looks like:

[www]
comment = Apache Document Home
path = /var/www/
writable = yes
force group = www-data

Answer 1

I am a little confused. If you want the owner to be set to www-data:www-data, then add

force user = www-data

Or are you saying that the files are not being created with the correct group name (www-data)?

Answer 2

chown abe:www-data /var/www
chmod g+s /var/www

It shall force the group of the future created files :)