Why does CIFS mount fail
 

I am using FC5 and I am attempting to do a CIFS mount from the FC5 workstation to a Solaris workstation.

I run:

mount -t cifs //<workstation>/<dir> /mnt/<mntpoint> -o credentials=/root/.credentials,ro

The credentials file is:
username=<name>
password=<password>

When I execute this I get the following error:

mount error 5 = Input/output error
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g.man mount.cifs)


When I attempt the same thing from the same FC5 workstation to a Windows-based server it works great so I know that the appropriate services and permissions are correct.

One thing that the Solaris administrator told me was that the password was transferred as "plaintext" (yeah, i know that is bad but i have no control over that). Any idea how I can make the CIFS mount use plaintext passwords?

You might try "echo 1 >/proc/fs/cifs/cifsFYI" to print out more debug information to the system error log. Reference: /usr/src/linux/fs/cifs/README

The message doesn't seem to indicate an authentication error, so I don't think the problem is with the password. I didn't find a reference to the error code in the manpage.

I did this and /var/log/messages only indicated the same error message

This is the dmesg log

fs/cifs/connect.c: CIFS VFS: leaving cifs_mount (xid = 16) rc = -5
CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -5
fs/cifs/cifsfs.c: Devname: //<Server>/<directory> flags: 65
fs/cifs/connect.c: CIFS VFS: in cifs_mount as Xid: 17 with uid: 0
fs/cifs/connect.c: Username: name
fs/cifs/connect.c: UNC: \\<server>\<directory> ip: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
fs/cifs/connect.c: Socket created
fs/cifs/connect.c: sndbuf 16384 rcvbuf 87380 rcvtimeo 0x7fffffff
fs/cifs/transport.c: Sending smb of length 68
fs/cifs/connect.c: Demultiplex PID: 30427
fs/cifs/connect.c: Existing smb sess not found
fs/cifs/transport.c: For smb_command 114
fs/cifs/transport.c: Sending smb of length 47
fs/cifs/connect.c: rfc1002 length 0x82000004)
fs/cifs/connect.c: Good RFC 1002 session rsp
fs/cifs/connect.c: rfc1002 length 0x53)
fs/cifs/cifssmb.c: share mode security
fs/cifs/connect.c: No session or bad tcon
fs/cifs/connect.c: CIFS VFS: leaving cifs_mount (xid = 17) rc = -5
CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -5

Do you have the CIFS client or samba on the Solaris box?
I mount from FC5 to Solaris 9 basic load box with mount -t nfs...

This is a common problem with the credentials file.

You will need to install ghex2, open the credentials file and remove the dot at the end of your password.