This document describes how to mount CIFS shares permanently. The shares might be hosted on a Windows computer/server, or on a Linux/UNIX server running Samba. This document also applies to SMBFS shares, which are similar to CIFS but are deprecated and should be avoided if possible (link).
(This document does not describe how to host the shares yourself, only how to access shares that are hosted somewhere else. For hosting shares, use Samba.)
sudo apt-get install cifs-utils
sudo apt-get install smbfs
First, let's create the mount directory. You will need a separate directory for each mount.
sudo mkdir /media/windowsshare
Then edit your /etc/fstab file (with root privileges) to add this line:
//servername/sharename /media/windowsshare cifs guest,uid=1000,iocharset=utf8 0 0
guest indicates you don't need a password to access the share,
uid=1000 makes the Linux user specified by the id the owner of the mounted share, allowing them to rename files,
iocharset=utf8 allows access to files with names in non-English languages. This doesn't work with shares of devices like the Buffalo Tera Station, or Windows machines that export their shares using ISO8895-15.
After you add the entry to /etc/fstab type:
sudo mount -a
This will (re)mount all entries listed in /etc/fstab.
The quickest way to auto-mounting a password-protected share is to edit /etc/fstab (with root privileges), to add this line:
//servername/sharename /media/windowsshare cifs username=msusername,password=mspassword,iocharset=utf8,sec=ntlm 0 0
This is not a good idea however: /etc/fstab is readable by everyone and so is your Windows password in it. The way around this is to use a credentials file. This is a file that contains just the username and password.
Using a text editor, create a file for your remote servers logon credential:
gedit ~/.smbcredentials
Enter your Windows username and password in the file:
username=msusername password=mspassword
Save the file, exit the editor.
Change the permissions of the file to prevent unwanted access to your credentials:
chmod 600 ~/.smbcredentials
Then edit your /etc/fstab file (with root privileges) to add this line (replacing the insecure line in the example above, if you added it):
//servername/sharename /media/windowsshare cifs credentials=/home/ubuntuusername/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,sec=ntlm 0 0
Save the file, exit the editor.
Finally, test the fstab entry by issuing:
sudo mount -a
If there are no errors, you should test how it works after a reboot. Your remote share should mount automatically.
If you need special permission (like chmod etc.), you'll need to add a uid (short for 'user id') or gid (for 'group id') parameter to the share's mount options.
//servername/sharename /media/windowsshare cifs uid=ubuntuuser,credentials=/home/ubuntuuser/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,sec=ntlm 0 0
In addition to the initial assumptions, we're assuming that
sudo apt-get install libpam-mount
Edit /etc/security/pam_mount.conf.xml using your preferred text editor.
gksudo gedit /etc/security/pam_mount.conf.xml
First, we're moving the user specific config bits to a file which users can actually edit themselves: remove the commenting tags (<!-- and -->) surrounding the section called <luserconf name=".pam_mount.conf.xml" />. Save the file when done. With this in place, users can create their own ~/.pam_mount.conf.xml.
gedit ~/.pam_mount.conf.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <pam_mount> <volume options="uid=%(USER),gid=100,dmask=0700" user="*" mountpoint="/media/windowsshare" path="sharename" server="servername" fstype="cifs" /> </pam_mount>
If you get the error "mount error(13) permission denied", then the server denied your access. Here are the first things to check:
Are you using a valid username and password? Does that account really have access to this folder?
Do you have whitespace in your credentials file? It should be password=mspassword, not password = mspassword.
Do you need a domain? For example, if you are told that your username is SALES\sally, then actually your username is sally and your domain is SALES. The fstab entry should read: ...username=sally,password=pass,domain=SALES,... Or: ...credentials=/path/to/file,domain=SALES,...
Is the security setting correct? The most common is sec=ntlm, but you can also try the other options listed at the mount.cifs man page. The man page list leaves out the option sec=lanman for some reason, but you should try that one as well (see discussion).
I've had a situation where an unprotected network folder wouldn't automount during bootup, but after manually entering "sudo mount -a" was mounted correctly. I solved this by replacing the "guest" option by "username=guest,password=". If anyone has an explanation for this, please leave a comment.
//servername/sharename /media/windowsshare smbfs username=guest,password=,uid=1000,iocharset=utf8,codepage=unicode,unicode 0 0
If for some reason/etc/rc0.d/S31umountnfs.sh (networking problems for example) the automatic mounting during boot doesn't work, you can add the "noauto" parameter to your smbfs fstab entry and then have the share mounted at login.
//servername/sharename /media/windowsshare cifs noauto,credentials=/home/ubuntuusername/.smbpasswd 0 0
mount /media/windowsshare exit 0
If you use Network Manager, and are getting really slow shutdowns, it's probably because NM shuts down before unmounting the network shares. That will cause CIFS to hang and wait for 60 seconds or so. Here's how to fix it:/etc/rc0.d/S31umountnfs.sh
sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh /etc/rc0.d/K14umountnfs.sh sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh /etc/rc6.d/K14umountnfs.sh
Ubuntu 12.04 already runs umountnfs.sh at reboot and shutdown by default (/etc/rc0.d/S31umountnfs.sh and /etc/rc6.d/S31umountnfs.sh) so this is no longer necessary.
Using dmask or fmask in the fstab file produces the following warnings: WARNING: CIFS mount option 'dmask' is deprecated. Use 'dir_mode' instead. WARNING: CIFS mount option 'fmask' is deprecated. Use 'file_mode' instead.
Instead use this format: file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777
Curiously, using credentials=~/.smbcredentials in fstab didn't work. I had to use the full path, i.e. /home/username/.smbcredentials
(This is likely because the tilde "~" is only a shell short-hand alias for "$HOME"; it isn't something recognized system-wide by all programs, especially not in a system file table where the concept of "HOME" doesn't really exist. -Ian!)