chrisjrob: samba https://chrisjrob.com GNU Linux, Perl and FLOSS en-gb Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:22:31 +0000 Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:22:31 +0000 Howto | Install Samba to Access Windows Shares https://chrisjrob.com/2009/03/21/install-samba-to-access-windows-shares/ Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:15:07 +0000 chrisjrob@gmail.com (Chris Roberts) https://chrisjrob.com/2009/03/21/install-samba-to-access-windows-shares If you are looking for a full Samba LDAP installation, please look elsewhere, this is a simple set-up to access files from an existing Windows or Samba server.

Installation

# apt-get install smbfs smbclient

Create password file

$ echo "username=abc" >> /home/username/.smbpassword
$ echo "password=p455w0rd" >> /home/username/.smbpassword
$ chmod go-rwx /home/username/.smbpassword

Add network drives

Edit /etc/fstab:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>      <type>      <options>                    <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc              proc        defaults                     0       0
/dev/sda1       /                  ext3        defaults,errors=remount-ro   0       1
/dev/sda5       none               swap        sw                           0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0      udf,iso9660 user,noauto                  0       0
//hostname/D$   /media/shared      cifs        auto,rw,uid=trident,gid=users,fmask=0664,dmask=0775,iocharset=iso8859-15,credentials=/home/user/.smbpassword 0 0

Having done this, I find that you have to issue a:

$ sudo mount -a

This simply remounts any unmounted filesystems from /etc/fstab.

Mount directly

$ sudo mount -t cifs //hostname/D$ /media/drive_d -o username=..,password=...,auto,rw,uid=...,gid=...,file_mode=0664,dir_mode=0775,iocharset=iso8859-15
$ sudo mount -t cifs //hostname/D$ /media/drive_d -o auto,rw,uid=...,file_mode=0664,dir_mode=0775,iocharset=iso8859-15,credentials=/home/user/.smbpasswd
$ sudo umount /media/drive_d

Unmount

You unmount by referencing the mount point.

$ sudo umount /media/drive_d

OpenOffice

There is a bug in OpenOffice which prevents you from being able to open documents by clicking on the file from within a Samba share. To fix this replace the default %U switch with %f in the KDE Menu configuration editor - right click over the KDE start menu → Menu Editor; next find every occurrence of the OO suite and replace %U with %f.

References

  • http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Filesystems/Mounting_smbfs_Shares_Permanently.html
  • http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/mounting-an-smbfs-using-fstab-461202/
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