Unable to mount via cifs but fine with sbmfs

drewhead · 01-25-2006, 08:14 AM

I've redesigned my home lan to have a slack box with some big storage that my other slack box(s) and a WinXp machine share and GigE to move things around. I quickly hit the 2GB smbfs limitation copying around some DVD images. Opps. So I googled a bit and found CIFS.

From my reading I believe it is correct that the kernel option for cifs is needed on the client only. So I went and recompiled my kernel, 2.6.15.1, with the cifs option (and statistics just for fun) and tried changing my fstab to use cifs.

The two slackware 10.2 boxes in question here are moat, the server, and tower, the client, each running 2.6.15. Each are identified correctly in thier respective /etc/hosts file.

This is the old samba mount:

Code:

//moat/safe     /safe            smbfs       credentials=/etc/samba/moat_credentials,rw         1   1

and works fine (right up to 2G).

This is the modified cifs mount

Code:

//moat/safe     /safe            cifs       credentials=/etc/samba/moat_credentials,rw         1   1

This wont mount.

Code:

root@tower:/etc/samba# mount /safe
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //moat/safe,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

syslog says:

Code:

Jan 25 08:36:58 tower kernel:  CIFS VFS: No username specified 
Jan 25 08:36:58 tower kernel:  CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -22

The things I've been reading say this should pretty much work? Do I need to compile cifs on the server as well? What's the simple step I seem to have missed? (it's always the little things...)

Finlay · 01-25-2006, 02:01 PM

cifs can be loaded by module
modprobe cifs
add that to the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.modules

yes you should have it loaded on the server and client.

if you still have trouble try the mount by keying in the user/pass, perhaps a differnt credentials file may be needed.

drewhead · 01-26-2006, 10:04 PM

I compiled cifs as a module on my server. I modprobed it, lsmod show it loaded. I then rc.samba restart 'ed.

No change in error on my client when mounting via fstab, but I can craft a command line with mount.cifs that works.

Code:

mount.cifs //moat/safe /safe -o user=xxxx,password=xxxx,rw

Yet this fstab line:

Code:

//moat/safe /safe cifs user=xxxx,password=xxxx,rw 1 1

doesn't mount, but . Any idea how I can make this work in fstab so it will happen at boot?

marozsas · 01-27-2006, 04:11 AM

Use the auto parameter !
//moat/safe /safe cifs auto,user=xxxx,password=xxxx,rw 1 1

drewhead · 01-27-2006, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marozsas

Use the auto parameter !
//moat/safe /safe cifs auto,user=xxxx,password=xxxx,rw 1 1

Cool! That works. Interestingly option auto is absent from man mount.cifs (yea I know it's in man mount). For anyone else happening by this thread, I did discover that I needed mount.cifs in my path and then calling mount (instead of explicitly mount.cifs) worked.

I have even been able to pull the auth info out of fstab

and in to a credentials. Apparently cifs doesn't like the spaces in

Code:

username = xxxx

which worked fine in smbfs so I had to use

Code:

username=xxxx

.

Thanks for the tips guys.

marozsas · 01-27-2006, 08:57 AM

I don't know how to use this thing credentials instead passwords on the fstab. It's sounds great !
Could you explain how to use it, please ?

thanks !

drewhead · 01-27-2006, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marozsas

I don't know how to use this thing credentials instead passwords on the fstab. It's sounds great !
Could you explain how to use it, please ?

thanks !

Create a file and put two lines in it,

Code:

username=xxxx
password=xxxx

and restrict it to read only owner by root (for automounting at boot). I placed mine in /etc/samba/<servername>_credentials

Then replace username=xxxx,password=xxxx in the option of your fstab with credentials=/etc/samba/<servername>_credentials, or whatever you created your file as.

Assuming you manage your permissions correctly the system can auto mount the share at boot, users can see the line in fstab, but not the user/pass used to login.

Good luck.