Mount remotely with authentication

deepaklukose · 09-23-2005, 05:28 AM

hai
I need to allow users to mount their home directory(on the server) from client machines.The users must be authenticated.This is needed so that users can use Kate or other editors from client to edit their files but with minimal load on the server.
The server is running Debian sarge 3.1 and clients are running various distros of linux (redhat 9,fc3 ,debian,suse...)
please help me with this problem...

Thanks

Nathanael · 09-23-2005, 06:17 AM

wellcome to lq...

i assume you have samba running?
i assume the client computers running linux have samba client installed and smbfs?
do the clients have root access to their local machines?
have you had a look the the mount (or smbmount) man page?

try:

mount -t smbfs -o username=<username>,sid,uid=<local_user>,gid=<local_group_of_local_user> //host/share /mount/point

dracolich · 09-23-2005, 07:16 AM

Also, on the server end, run smbpasswd for each user and make sure the etc/samba/smb.conf has appropriate lines for the [homes] section - something like:

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
path = /home
read-only = no

deepaklukose · 09-26-2005, 09:13 AM

thank you for replying so fast...i have a small problem now....the users have just a guest login in the client machines.so i believe using smbmount they can mount directory.Does smbmount always (ie on linux distros) allow non-root users to mount directories.and how can i get non-root users to use mount.mount says "only root can do that"

deepaklukose · 09-26-2005, 09:21 AM

I more question.If allow /home to be mounted then wont user1 be able to modify/view files of user2 assuming both have their home dir /home/userX.Or should i make 2 separate mount points in smb.conf.
how can i sync unix passwds and smb passwds using libpam-smbpass?

dracolich · 09-26-2005, 12:31 PM

That's why you set smbpasswd on the server. It's not the same as the user's login password. If a client wants to access his home share on the server he has to type the password set on the server. The directory mounted will only be the one for the user that the password belongs to.

deepaklukose · 09-28-2005, 10:22 PM

In debian there is a package libpam-smbpass whose description is as follows:
This is a stackable PAM module that allows a system administrator to easily migrate to using encrypted passwords for Samba and to keep smb passwords in sync with unix passwords. Unlike other solutions, it does this without requiring users to change their existing passwords or login to Samba using cleartext passwords.

Do you know how to use them?So that i can allow users to use their unix passwords to mount their shares.