cifs mount error(13) permission denied on client

I have attempted to set up a cifs share from one linux box to another using RHEL 7.

Config:
[samba]
path = /some_share
browseable = yes
writable = no
write list = user1,user2

enabled and started smb & nmb, added users to smbpasswd, added samba firewall via firewall-cmd, added selinux context to the directory.

On the client:
I installed cifs-utils, created a mount point, tried to mount it via the command line: mount //server1/samba /mnt -o username=user1
it asks for the smbpassword, i enter it and get the mount error 13.

So i thought it may be the firewall on the server. I stopped firewalld and tried again. same error 13.
Thought it may be related to selinux, stopped selinux and tried again. same error 13.

anyone have any ideas?

If both systems are Linux why use CIFS instead of NFS?

testing, studying purposes.

You listed your command as:

mount //server1/samba /mnt -o username=user1

That is slightly off what I've done in the past - maybe order of options is your issue. What if you try:

mount -t cifs -o username=user1,password=<password> //server1/samba /mnt

Note that you can put the actual password on the command line indicated above to avoid it prompting for one.

I did that too with the same results. it's driving me crazy!!!

I just did some testing and found that the mount on the client side is the subdirectory on the server side.

That is to say if /some_share on the server is /samba/anonymous then on the client I have to tell it to mount anonymous rather than samba/anonymous.

I'm not sure what you're doing here.
The config doesn't have a sub-directory. It's just /some_share

Are both the client and server running RHEL 7?

I assume that user1 is an existing user on the server and has read/write permissions to /some_share?

yes RHEL 7 on both servers. user1 is created on the samba server and has read/write

I'm running CentOS 7 but I would expect the same versions/behavior as RHEL. Are you using a hostname or IP address? If using a hostname try the IP address.

Also try accessing the share using the smbclient command.

smbclient //server1/share_name -U user1

Basically smbclient is acting as a ftp client.

Using hostname. tried ip, tried smbclient too. same issue.