according to the mount.cifs manual, everything I have is right. I assume thats why everything works right when i do a mount -a after logging in.

[administrator@pc ~]$ ps aux | grep iptables
501 22513 0.0 0.0 2956 720 pts/2 S+ 16:08 0:00 grep --color iptables

I really have no clue what the above output is.

here might be some useful information from dmesg:

CIFS: Unknown mount option _netdev
r8169: eth0: link up
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready
CIFS VFS: Error connecting to IPv4 socket. Aborting operation
CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -101


looks like _netdev is an unknown option, and possible eth0 is not ready at time of mount?

is just ps finding the command you are currently running (ps aux | grep iptables). I assume grep is aliased to grep --color on you system)

I'm struggling a bit with the error you are getting. What distro are you running, and do you compile your own kernel? I'll have a look in more detail later if I get a system booted that mount this way.

A workaround (kin of takes us back to step 1) would be to add "mount -a" to rc.local

i'm running pclinuxos 2007. i'm not advanced enough to compile my own kernel. i'm running the kernel supplied with the release.

the error just simply looks like eth0 isnt fully up and running yet, which is why cifs is erroring on connecting to ipv4. I think if i put mount -a in my rc.local, i will run into the same problem... rc.local runs just a bit too soon before eth0 is fully up, which is why when i originally tried putting my mounts in rc.local, they did not connect.

i'd have no problem using a workaround, just as long as everything worked.

the fact that eth0 isn't up is exactly what the _netdev option is meant to deal with. I don't quite see why the invalid option error (you only have one "_" there? no space before it?

Dodgy workaround

in root's crontab, using crontab -e add at the very top

@reboot mount -a

maybe that's late enough

Another thought - since I can't see your password, do you have any funny characters in there? try surrounding the pw with quotes

at root console i type crontab -e and get: no crontab for root - using an empty one

So I just added the @reboot mount -a to the empty file.

password is plain alphanumerical

man mount.cifs doesnt say anything about _netdev. maybe my cifs is outdated?

I dont think i was editing the right crontab with crontab -e... the bottom of the file says "/tmp/crontab.XXXXna6Awc" 1L, 66C

I did nano /etc/crontab, and that file does contain some text. should I put @reboot mount -a at the very top before SHELL=/bin/bash, or put it just after?

No - that's the "system" crontab (although it may work in there)

You should have each user's crontab file in (somewhere like) /var/spool/cron (chack with "find / -type d -name cron". If you go "cat /var/spool/cron/root", you should see the same file you see when you enter crontab -e.

I think you'll find the editing of a temp file is normal - it only gets over-written when you exit the editor.

"cat /var/spool/cron/root" brings up no such file or directory

you'll have to excuse me, i have no idea how to use vim. i've always used pico and nano. man vim does not help me at all.

so i do crontab -e, which brings me to a tmp file since one does not exist. i tried to enter @reboot mount -a, and tried :save. but whenever i do that and :quit, i go back into the file with crontab -e and the file is not saved, it is again blank. i have no clue how to save the file in vim, and the man page gives no explanation of usage once inside the editor.

You should be able to hit escape, then

:wq

to save and quit (I think :ZZ works too. Note the ":")

Okay, the changes are saved. before i reboot, i want to make sure i edited the file properly. I didnt know how to start editing the file, when i started typing nothing happened until I got to the "b" in "reboot"... im assuming you have to hit "e" to start editing the file. so heres my crontab file:

# min(0-59) hours(0-23) day(1-31) month(1-12) dow(0-7) command
@reboot mount -a

~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
~
"/tmp/crontab.XXXXnzdBT8" 3L, 84C 1,1 All

note it still says tmp at the bottom... but when i did :wq <enter> it did tell me it made new crontab for root. so i guess everything is okay. I'll wait till you post back before i reboot in case i did something wrong.

That looks fine (yes you'll get tmp). You can hit "i" or "a" to start inserting or appending

These may help in future

http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/vimcheat.html
http://bullium.com/support/vim.html

Rebooted after the crontab edit, and that didnt work. also put mount -a into rc.local, which didnt work either. i'm going to remove the entry's in crontab and rc.local since they dont work.

This user was having the same issue as me. i did a google search for cifs code 101:

http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=42519

there was no solution posted there either.