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 so that you can also access it on the command line.

As documented in https://computing.ee.ethz.ch/Workstations/FindYourData the share //itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch/<YourAccount> 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 cann't use this share (see

Command Line

gvfs-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:~> gvfs-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:~> gvfs-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 package "cifs-utils" is installed.

$ sudo su
# mkdir /itet-stor
# mount -t cifs -o user=<d\your_tardis_login>,name=itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch \\\\itet-stor.ee.ethz.ch\\<d\your_tardis_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.

XFCE Nemo

Open the Connect to Server application and enter the details similar to the screenshot below.

KDE Konqueror,Dolphin (all machines at ETH)

As mentioned above Konqueror and Dolphin cann'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.

For accessing your home share provided from ID, use the following data:

Location:   smb://nas-nethz-users.ethz.ch/share-u-$/username
Username:   d\yourNethzUsername
Password:   yourPrivatePassword

Obs! The 'share-u-$' part of the location is dependant on the first character in your  username. If your username is 'kpelle', this part of the location will change to 'share-k-$'

For accessing your D-ITET home share, use the following data:

Location:   smb://nas-itet-01/itet_isg_homes_<nn>/username
Username:   d\username
Password:   yourPrivatePassword

SSH File System

$ mkdir ~/tardis-home
$ sshfs <d\your_tardis_login>@login.ee.ethz.ch: ~/tardis-home

But please note, that you can't do sshfs on homes.ee.ethz.ch - use login.ee.ethz.ch instead!

You can also unmount it again by typing:

$ fusermount -u ~/tardis-home

Please note that sshfs is not officially supported by the ISG.EE

CategoryEDUC