Samba cannot access sub-directories

I have added this in my /etc/samba/smb.conf

[srv]
   comment = another share
   path = /srv
   browseable = yes
   create mask = 0777
   directory mask = 0777

[slash]
   comment = another sharedsad
   path = /
   browseable = yes
   writable = yes
   create mask = 0777
   directory mask = 0777

I can easily access sub-directory inside \\IP\srv\ but I cannot do so with \\IP\slash\.

SMB server is installed in a Linux Mint 17.3 VM and I am trying to access it from a windows host.

smbclient on guest is giving error too NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED listing \bin

Logs say:

[2016/02/01 03:42:52.256236,  0]         ../source3/param/loadparm.c:4365(process_usershare_file)
  process_usershare_file: stat of /var/lib/samba/usershares/vk failed. No such file or directory

Solution

This turned out to be a bug introduced in Samba 4.1+ https://www.turnkeylinux.org/forum/support/20160104/samba-updated-and-broke-root-share-any-ideas

There are two workarounds for this:

A) Enable symlinks. Add this to your smb.conf

[global]
    wide links = yes
    unix extensions = no

B) https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11647#c7

mkdir /mnt/root
mount -o rbind / /mnt/root

and use "path = /mnt/root" instead of "path = /"