[lug] Recommendations for Instructions on Mounting W2K file systems

Lee Woodworth blug-mail at duboulder.com
Fri Sep 2 14:53:01 MDT 2005


Siegfried Heintze wrote:
> I've just installed Windows XP and Fedora Core 4 on a new box.
> I've been googling for references on samba and ntfs because I'm trying to
> 
> (1)     mount a local Windows XP partition
> 
> (2)     Mount a disk on another computer running Windows XP
Just a note: windows doesn't export partitions or disks. It exports
directory trees as shares, some of which start with the root directory
of a partition and are conveniently named for the parttion (e.g. C$, ...).
You can export the root directory with a different name. The administrative
shares (C$, D$, ...) are automatically created for each disk unless you
fiddle with configuration settings.

Your scenarios 1 and 2 are a linux box acting as a client to access file
shares provided by a windows box. The client does not need to understand
the file system being shared. It only needs to understand the file
sharing protocol used by the server machine. The kernel modules
smbfs and cifs provide the ability to speak the file sharing protocol
used by the windows box and to provide a mount point for file access.
Use the cifs module in over the smbfs module if your are talking to
windows 2000 or higher.

See man 8 mount and man 8 smbmount for information on how to mount
windows shares. Note that mount -t ntfs ... means you are trying to
mount a disk directly attached to the linux box.

IIRC you need a command something like:
    mount -t cifs -o option=value //host/share /mnt/point


> I thought samba was exclusively for use with allowing Windows boxes access
> linux and windows partitions on remote linux computers. Is it also used to
> allow a linux box to mount both local and remote Windows XP partitions?
> Apparently it is.
No, Samba provides resources as shares (directories
and printer queues).

> I'm confused, for example, by http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net
> <http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/>  which explains that fedora is the only
> distribution that does not have ntfs file system (which I confirmed with
> "cat /proc/filesystems".) This site led me to believe that I did not need
> samba. After installing the rpm for my version of the OS, I still don't see
> ntfs in /proc/filesystems.
You don't need this on the client side. In any case its a kernel component
that can be built as module. It won't show up in /proc/fs (2.6) unless it
is built into the kernel or the module is loaded.


> But other sites say to use "mount -t smbfs"  (does smb stand for system
> message buffer or samba?) and I see from the rpm command that the fedora
> installation procedures have installed samba for me but I don't see smbfs in
> /proc/filesystems either. Should I?
See above. If compiled as a kernel module it won't show until loaded by
modprobe or autoloaded by mount -t ...

> I was able to use a "mount -t smbfs" with the username and password and
> there was a long pause like it was negotiating usernames and passwords with
> my windows box only to get an error message that the connection was refused
> by windows.
Verifying authentication with windows has always been a pain. Especially
with XP Home with the crippled file sharing abilities. If you are using XP
Home I'd shoot it and at least use XP pro.

> When I dealt with the problem years ago the problem was that I had to
> explicitly tell Mandrake 7.3 to encrypt the windows usernames and passwords
> (which was not the default at the time). I wonder if that is my problem? 
Depends on what OS is doing the sharing. XP home is weird compared to
windows 2000, XP pro or windows 2003. With 2000 and 2003 the compatability
settings determine what protocol level and features are used. Try the cifs
module instead of smbfs if you are connecting to one of win 200x or xp pro.




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