Contents
Accessing Samba shares from Linux
Overview
Recent Linux Kernels contain the userspace filesystem FUSE. This allows you to use all sorts of new an inovative ways for mounting remote fileystems with normal user privileges. Samples are the "gnome userspace virtual filesystem" and "sshfs" based on SSH.
All graphical desktop file managers must use FUSE based solutions to access remote SMB/CIFS filesystems because they are running with normal user privileges.
In all cases, the share will be mounted in:
/run/user/$UID/gvfs/smb-share:server=X,share=Y
which can be used as
cd /run/user/$(id -u)/gvfs/
to change to the directory containing the mounts on the command line or
xdg-open /run/user/$(id -u)/gvfs
to open it in the desktop file manager.
As documented in Workstations/FindYourData the share //itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch/$USER is a good place to find all your accessible CIFS resources. Technical this share is an implementation of a "Distributed File System (DFS)" root for your account. Unfortunately not all desktop file managers can handle this special kind of a share. With the KDE file managers Konqueror and Dolphin you can't use this share (see Konqueror, Dolphin).
Protocol configuration
Recent Debian releases limit the maximum protocol version of Samba to a lower version than commonly offered by modern Windows servers. This is easily remedied by creating a minimal Samba configuration with the following string of commands:
mkdir ~/.smb && echo -e '[global]\nclient max protocol = SMB3' > ~/.smb/smb.conf
Command Line
gio mount
You can also connect to a Samba share on the command line. After you run that command, you can browse the share in Nautilus.
pmuster@testclient:~> gio mount smb://itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch/pmuster Password required for share pmuster on itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch User [pmuster]: pmuster Domain [WORKGROUP]: d Password: ********
To unmount a share on the command line, just add the -u flag:
pmuster@testclient:~> gio mount -u smb://itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch/pmuster
smbclient
smbclient is something like an interactive shell to the file server and also a good troubleshooting tool for connection problems. To connect your personal DFS root share enter:
pmuster@testclient:~$ smbclient -W d //itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch/pmuster
Enter pmuster's password:
Domain=[D] OS=[Windows 6.1] Server=[Samba 4.2.10-Debian]
smb: \>
smb: \> ls
. D 0 Thu Oct 13 15:27:09 2016
.. D 0 Thu Nov 24 04:55:59 2016
home D 0 Thu Oct 13 15:27:09 2016
project01 D 0 Thu Oct 13 15.27:09 2016
47929224 blocks of size 1024. 37295664 blocks available
smb: \> cd home
smb: \home\>
smb: \home\> ls
. D 0 Thu Nov 24 09:35:24 2016
.. DA 0 Thu Nov 24 08:17:38 2016
public_html D 0 Wed Feb 3 15:34:27 2016
Desktop D 0 Mon May 23 14:57:56 2016
Downloads D 0 Mon May 23 14:50:26 2016
....
1536000 blocks of size 1024. 1340637 blocks available
smb: \home\> exit
pmuster@testclient:~$ With the command help you get a list of all available commands inside the shell.
root mount
You can also mount your Samba home area with CIFS. This method is only available on computers where you have root access (i.e. this does not work on Linux workstations managed by us). If the command returns an error message saying "wrong fs type", make sure the packages "cifs-utils" and "keyutils" are installed.
$ sudo su # mkdir /itet-stor # mount -t cifs -o user=<nethz_login>,domain=d //itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch/<nethz_login> /itet-stor
Desktop File Managers
Gnome Nautilus
Select on the left side Connect to network and enter the name of the share in the Server Address field, e.g. as smb://itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch/pmuster.
Enter the details as given in the screenshot below.
Cinnamon Nemo
Open the Connect to Server application and enter the details similar to the screenshot below.
KDE Konqueror,Dolphin
As mentioned above Konqueror and Dolphin can't be used to access smb resources over \\itet-stor\username.
Open your Konqueror or Dolphin Filemanager/Webbrowser.
As location, use smb://server/share followed by <Enter>. Type your username and password in the following dialog box.
ID home share
Location: smb://nas-nethz-users.ethz.ch/share-<?>-$/username
Username: d\yourNethzUsername
Password: yourPrivatePassword
The share-<?>-$ part of the location is dependant on the first character in your username. If your username is kpelle, this part of the location must be changed to share-k-$.
D-ITET home share
Location: smb://nas-itet-01/itet_isg_homes_<nn>/username
Username: d\username
Password: yourPrivatePassword
The homes are distributed over multiple itet_isg_homes_<nn> shares, to see the number to use you can look at the NFS path of your home:
pmuster@testclient:~$ ssh login.ee.ethz.ch "df ." pmu@login.ee.ethz.ch's password: Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on nas-itet-01.ethz.ch:/sco_itet_005/itet_isg_homes_03/pmuster 1536000 195072 1340928 13% /home/pmuster pmuster@testclient:~$
So the location for pmuster's home is: smb://nas-itet-01/itet_isg_homes_03/pmuster.
D-ITET project share
Location: smb://itetnas<nn>.ee.ethz.ch/project
Username: d\username
Password: yourPrivatePassword
Again the NFS path of the project home is needed:
pmuster@testclient:~$ ssh login.ee.ethz.ch "df /home/mare" Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on itetnas02:/usr/itetnas02/data-project-01/mare 3170549760 620497920 2539297792 20% /home/mare pmuster@testclient:~$
So the location for the mare project home is: smb://itetnas02.ee.ethz.ch/mare.
Troubleshooting
Depending on the way of accessing a Samba share, error messages similar to the following might appear:
gvsf-mount: Error mounting location: Failed to mount Windows share: Connection timed out
nautilus: Unhandled error message: Failed to mount Windows share: Connection timed out
smbclient: protocol negotiation failed: NT_STATUS_CONNECTION_RESET
This indicates a failed protocol negotiation between the Samba server and your client in case the protocol version offerd by the server is higher than the client accepts. To fix this apply the protocol configuration mentioned above.
smbclient accepts the parameter "-m" to set the protocol level directly without the need to apply the protocol configuration:
pmuster@testclient:~$ smbclient -W d -m SMB3 //itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch/pmuster