I want to share a drive or folder in able to access same files from several machines on same network
Simply please no long speeches.
Are the computers needing access to these shared files all Linux, or a mixture? I have a mixture of Windows and Linux; for the Windows computers I use a Samba share as @ilikelinux suggests, and for Linux systems, an NFS share. I find NFS quite a bit easier to set up and maintain, compared to Samba, but both are stable and trouble-free for several years for my needs.
Basically it is done by acitvating file sharing on the server and connecting from clients with the file navigator, possibly using the server local IP address. See Gnome Settings > Sharing. The underlying protocol can be Samba or NFS. Some installs on server and clients might be necessary but configuration should be performed at high level, better than tweaking config files. File permissions must be adequate and most system provide users with a public folder for this purpose. You could also set up a local ftp
or http
server but you need to update it. Also, network storage exists, in particular, some routers provide it (like Freebox). scp
is also possible.