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I am a little confused on the proper fstab entry for a samba share in Ubuntu 12.04

  • I can get the drive to mount manually by using:

    sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.2.2/raid_drive /mnt/homeserver -o username=jon,password=password
    
  • So I tried putting this in fstab:

    //192.168.2.2/raid_drive /mnt/homeserver cifs username=jon,password=password,iocharset=utf8,mode=0777,dir_mode=07‌​77 0 0
    
  • Which gives me this error in syslog:

    kernel: [ 2217.925354] CIFS: Unknown mount option mode
    kernel: [ 2217.936345] CIFS VFS: default security mechanism requested.  The default security mechanism will be upgraded from ntlm to ntlmv2 in kernel release 3.3
    
  • This guide says to use smbfs although I believe smbfs is deprecated?

What is a common fstab configuration for a samba share in Ubuntu 12.04?

EDIT:

Using the accepted answer below I was initially getting this error message (from dmesg):

[   45.520883] CIFS VFS: Error connecting to socket. Aborting operation
[   45.520990] CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -115

although it turns out this was due to network connectivity issues, and not related to improper fstab entry.

4
  • You could try using the server computer's IP address instead of its name.
    – user87486
    Sep 4, 2012 at 14:59
  • That means you'll have to pass the password on the file? Is that a way to make the password secure?
    – user98020
    Oct 16, 2012 at 12:12
  • 1
    You can use a .smb credentials file with only root permission as @russnash suggests below.
    – jpetersen
    Oct 16, 2012 at 15:37
  • 1
    just tried your solution, but then i type sudo moun -a i get a error: [mntent]: line 13 in /etc/fstab is bad this is what i have typed /etc/fstab: //192.168.1.8/avcenter/Service\ -\ Installation /media/Service cifs credentials=.smbcredentials,uid=shareuser,gid=sharegroup 0 0 the reason for \ is that i read somewhere that if there where spaces in the folder then i should type \ to indicate that its a space.. even tried "Service - Installation"
    – user141481
    Mar 18, 2013 at 21:08

2 Answers 2

153

I've been through exactly this same issue this morning with 12.04 and here's how I got it working:

Install cifs-utils Install smbfs (even if you already have Samba and related packages installed):

sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

Edit /etc/fstab and add your entry:

//server/share /pathto/mountpoint cifs credentials=/home/username/.smbcredentials,uid=shareuser,gid=sharegroup 0 0

Create the .smbcredentials file in your home directory:

username=shareuser
password=sharepassword
domain=domain_or_workgroupname

Make sure you secure your ~/.smbcredentials file:

chmod 0600 ~/.smbcredentials

Finally, test the mount with:

sudo mount -a

...and you should be good to go!

11
  • 3
    I can't write to the share, even though the same user can when logging in with Windows. Is this a read only mount?
    – waspinator
    Dec 15, 2012 at 5:55
  • 4
    I ran into an error ("bad option: uid=my_username"). I got past it by removing the uid & gid options in fstab.
    – reg
    Oct 2, 2014 at 6:14
  • 2
    @reg The correct option is user when the username is given (similarly group) since uid is for the numerical user id. Nov 13, 2014 at 20:18
  • 4
    As an aside, the Ubuntu wiki has a full page on mounting samba shares including troubleshooting stuff. Nov 13, 2014 at 20:20
  • 4
    The reason why you should put your credentials into a file is because /etc/fstab is readable by everyone and so are your passwords in it. Source: wiki.ubuntu.com/…
    – ttt
    Jun 23, 2017 at 8:51
5

Your initial problem is in the option mode, as syslog says in the first line. What you probably meant was file_mode, see man mount.cifs for more information.

The credential approach mentioned by Eliah is indeed better than using username and password, but I don't think it interferes with the other options like file_mode or dir_mode.

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