Issues with mounting CIFS share permanently on Ubuntu 14.04

[Harry_Shaw]

I have a box running Freenas and I want to mount a cifs share on my ubuntu machine running desktop version 14.04
I can mount it using the following at command prompt

sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.10/raid_media1 /media/

This works just fine.
However, I want this to be done permanently (i.e. every time the machine reboots). So I followed the instructions and inserted following line item in /etc/fstab

//192.168.1.10/raid_media1 /media/ cifs iocharset=utf8,gid=124 0 0

gid=124 corresponds to the group sambashare, of which I am a member.

When I try to execute this using the mount -a command, it asks for a password (there is no password required for this share). When I hit enter, it hangs for a few seconds and spits out following:
mount error(115): Operation now in progress
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page
Of course, the mounting is not successful at this point. What am I missing ?

[TheFu]

That is a bad place to mount storage that YOU manage. That is where automaticly mounted stuff get put.
So ....

sudo mkdir /media1
Then add

//192.168.1.10/raid_media1 /media1 cifs iocharset=utf8,gid=124 0 0

to the fstab. Of course, this assumes "Everybody" is allowed to mount it form that IP. If there are only specific userids allolwed to mount it, then you'll want a "credentials file" as an option. Oh - and I didn't carefully validate your options. Nothing jumped out as wrong to me, but I don't know if they are correct.

I use:

rw,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0666,dir_mode=0777,credentials=/etc/samba/romulus-music.credential

but I don't mount through the fstab.

Honestly, if you are running FreeNAS, all storage shared to Unix-like OSes would be nicer as NFS. It is faster and "feels" like native storage - permissions, ownership, etc.

[Harry_Shaw]

@TheFu

Thanks for your reply. I was going to change the mount directory but thanks for your suggestion. Your idea of creating NFS share is a good one too. I will try that out as well.

You said you don't mount through fstab. How do you mount it then?

Also, is credentials file necessary if your shares don't have any password protection?

[TheFu]

@TheFu

Thanks for your reply. I was going to change the mount directory but thanks for your suggestion. Your idea of creating NFS share is a good one too. I will try that out as well.

The trick for NFS shares is matching uid/gids across all platforms. If they don't match, which ever userid has the same uid (the number) gets ownership. NFS doesn't mount at the userid level. It mounts at the machine-to-machine trust level.

You said you don't mount through fstab. How do you mount it then?

autofs there are pros/cons to doing it this way.

Also, is credentials file necessary if your shares don't have any password protection?

I don't know. Don't recall having any storage that didn't require credentials, but if anyone can read the storage, just leave off that option.

[nerdtron]

I have tried this on the crontab on reboot.
sudo crontab -e

Then add the following cron entry:
@reboot mount -t cifs //192.168.1.10/raid_media1 /media/

[Harry_Shaw]

^That is a cool idea. I am going to try that right now. Thanks.