i've just run up against a limitation in xp home, where i
have a folder i need to share to several mandriva boxes.
i have more mandriva boxes than xp home will allow a
simultaneous connection to. because of this i want to add
a mount command into my bash script. all of these various
mandriva connections to the xp folder are being handled
from within a script, same script on several mandriva boxes.

i can mount the xp folder from the command line but it
requires that i do so as root. how do i put that into a
bash script? and, can that be done in such a way that
authentication is also handled automatically, somehow? how
would i do that?

if i can get this to work i should be able to mount and
unmount from within the script during a loop so that i
never exceed the xp connections limit.

thanks,
BabaG

There are 2 ways to achieve this (mounting via script without being prompted for a root password):

- if whatever that is you mount doesn't change - just add it to /etc/fstab with 'user' in options.

- alternatively allow user to mount/unmount anything through /etc/sudoers.

thanks klearview.

i don't think i can use fstab to mount as it is an xp share. i need to
be able to have drives mount, perform an operation using them, then unmount;
otherwise i wind up with too many connections to this xp share.

if i can mount, then unmount, i can put this into a loop so that there are
never too many connections mounted to the xpshare.

as for the /etc/sudoers thing, i've tried using sudo with mandriva but get a
bash error. i don't think mandriva uses sudo. is that right anyone? or is
there a way to use sudo with mandriva that i don't know about and would get
this done for me?

thanks again,
BabaG

sudo is distro-agnostic and should work with Mandriva just fine. It might not be installed by default so install it first (sorry, I've never used Mandriva - what is it? 'urpmi install sudo'?).

Then edit your /etc/sudoers.

Add this:

Cmnd_Alias MOUNT =/bin/mount, /bin/umount


your_user_name ALL=NOPASSWD: MOUNT


After you log out and log back in you should be able to mount stuff by using 'sudo mount ...' without having to provide password.

thanks again klearview. will try all this tomorrow when i get back
to that system.

much appreciated,
BabaG

sudo is installed by default in a Mandriva system. Run visudo to configure it.

Jim

Normally, you just need to make yourself a member of the wheel group and the run "visudo", uncommenting a single line: "

I think that you may have a problem because your script may be trying to mount a share that is already mounted. If that is the case, you could add a test to the script seeing if that share is listed by the "mount" command.

Here is an example:
mount|grep LaTeX >/dev/null && echo LaTeX

You would have a mount command instead of echo.
Using the user mount option, would allow mounting in a user script. You may need to use the "uid" and "gid" options as well as "fmask" and "dmask" options. I'd also recommend using the "credentials" option so that the username and password aren't listed in the globally readable /etc/fstab file. Consider also using the _netdev option to prevent hanging if the XP host is down. The "noauto" option would be needed if you use an /etc/fstab entry. Then it won't try to mount the share when you boot up the Linux host.

ok, well, i'm finally getting a chance to try all this out and having
some problems.

tried klearview's:
but that produced a request for a password. if i leave it blank and
hit return it takes a second and returns me to my prompt without doing
anything. if i give it the password, i get:

'Sorry, user <username> is not allowed to execute '/bin/mount //path/
to/share /path/to/mount' as root on localhost.'

i did a full reboot after adding the lines to the /etc/sudoers file.

when i try jschiwal's solution i am allowed to mount and unmount but
am still asked for a password. i can leave the password blank and hit
return and it still mounts, but how do i make it not ask?

and if it has to ask but will accept a blank password, what do i put
into the script to just tell it to hit return?

thanks,
BabaG

By now you've probably got a solution to this. If not, are you running samba ? If so, add your mount to the end of the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file:

smbmount //remotecomputer/sharename /mnt/mount -o username=remotecomputer\johndoe,password=mypassword,fmask=777,dmask=777

the username will need to include the name of the remote computer and a user name on that (remote computer) system as shown above, or below:

remotecomputer\username

and the fmask and dmask can be changed as needed, 777 will give you full read / write / execute /delete all permissions.