Samba on FreeBSD - no AD, just a home network

[Richard P Mackerras]

Hi,

I have been having trouble with SAMBA on FreeBSD.
I have installed FreeBSD 11.1 and installed SAMBA. It is running, SAMBA
says it is the master browser for my workgroup.

This is a home network. No AD.
All I want is for a few W7 and W10 computers and a Mac (iPad/iPhone as
well?) to be able to read and write files to the SMB server.

I cannot get it to authenticate a user.

What is the process I should be following please?
Which type of authentication should I use, there seem to be a couple of
choices.
I don't want to expose my files if anyone hacks my wifi but I don't want to
make life difficult for myself.

The windows computers are using the HomeGroup thing rather than a workgroup.

The FreeBSD guide just seems to be rubbish and out of date. Most
discussions seem to centre around AD.

Is there anything I need to do to the Windows computers?

Cheers,

Richard