Mount samba shares with utf8 encoding using cifs

[PaulHuffman]

I must have too much time on my hands. I must want to punish myself. I must think I don't have enough frustration. I just went through a series of upgrades with Update Manager from 10.04. Each step looked pretty cool so I went for the next major upgrade offered. Until 11.11, and then the system hung during reboot. Then I thought "Dang, I wish I had saved my fstab and other modifications to a different file system".

I had to do a fresh install of 11.04 from a CD. Besides getting used to the strangeness of the desktop interface, I'm trying to restore the automatic network mounts I used to have to three Windows XP shares. I did the prework per the first post in this thread. Then I added mount points off my home directory rather than off media. Created a .smbcredentials file in /root. Then I added three lines to my fstab in the form of

//paule6500/avdata /home/paul/avdata cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials ioch
arset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_ mode=0777 0 0

But when I ran sudo mount -a I got a message that lines 14,15,and 16 in fstab are bad.

I tried mounting the shares from terminal using the form

//netbiosname/sharename    /media/sharename        cifs    credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 0 0

These mounts worked, showed up in Nautilus as folders with disk drives icon, and have an eject arrow in the left hand pane. Haven't seen that before. Pretty good, except these mounts are read-only.

The other strange thing is that these mounts seem to persist after a reboot. Is this the way 11.04 is supposed to work?

[dmizer]

Looks like your mount line was missing a comma (highlighted in red).

//paule6500/avdata /home/paul/avdata cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 0 0

Double check all your lines to make sure there are no extra spaces or missing punctuation. If your mount line wraps, it'll probably error. This will happen if you've edited your fstab in a GUI editor like gedit.

These mounts worked, showed up in Nautilus as folders with disk drives icon, and have an eject arrow in the left hand pane. Haven't seen that before. Pretty good, except these mounts are read-only.

Check the troubleshooting section for fixes on read only files. Specifically the section that is titled 'Files owned by root / "The folder contents could not be displayed'."

The other strange thing is that these mounts seem to persist after a reboot. Is this the way 11.04 is supposed to work?

I've never heard of that happening with a manual CLI mount. The only thing I can think of is that your fstab entries are actually working correctly despite your earlier error after sudo mount -a.

[TaTaE]

This share is mounted as domain administrator, I must say.

I have a problem accessing some files on a CIFS share. All other files and folders are accessible.

root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# ls
fullbackup  var  www
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# ls
fullbackup  var  www
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# rm -rf var/
^C
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# rm -rf var/www/
^C
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# rm -rf var/www/*
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# rm -rf var/www/
^C
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# rm -rf var/
^C
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# mv var/ /tmp/
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-full.20111112T021708Z.vol1.difftar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.vol1.difftar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.vol1.difftar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.vol1.difftar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.vol1.difftar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.vol1.difftar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.vol1.difftar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-inc.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.vol1.difftar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.sigtar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.sigtar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.sigtar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.sigtar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.sigtar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.sigtar.gz': No such file or directory
mv: cannot stat `var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.sigtar.gz': No such file or directory
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# ls var/www/
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-full.20111112T021708Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
duplicity-full.20111112T021708Z.vol1.difftar.gz                     duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.sigtar.gz
duplicity-inc.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.vol1.difftar.gz  duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.sigtar.gz
duplicity-inc.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.vol1.difftar.gz  duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.sigtar.gz
duplicity-inc.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.vol1.difftar.gz  duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.sigtar.gz
duplicity-inc.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.vol1.difftar.gz  duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.sigtar.gz
duplicity-inc.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.vol1.difftar.gz  duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.sigtar.gz
duplicity-inc.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.vol1.difftar.gz  duplicity-new-signatures.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.sigtar.gz
duplicity-inc.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.vol1.difftar.gz
root@firewall:/media/sambaa/fisiere# ls var/www/ -ls
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-full.20111112T021708Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-inc.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.vol1.difftar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access var/www/duplicity-new-signatures.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.sigtar.gz: No such file or directory
total 0
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-full.20111112T021708Z.vol1.difftar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-inc.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.vol1.difftar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-inc.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.vol1.difftar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-inc.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.vol1.difftar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-inc.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.vol1.difftar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-inc.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.vol1.difftar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-inc.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.vol1.difftar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-inc.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.vol1.difftar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T181707Z.to.20111111T191708Z.sigtar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T191708Z.to.20111111T201708Z.sigtar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T201708Z.to.20111111T211709Z.sigtar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T211709Z.to.20111111T221709Z.sigtar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T221709Z.to.20111111T231710Z.sigtar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-new-signatures.20111111T231710Z.to.20111112T001709Z.sigtar.gz
? -????????? ? ? ? ?                ? duplicity-new-signatures.20111112T001709Z.to.20111112T011709Z.sigtar.gz

[dmizer]

This share is mounted as domain administrator, I must say.

Can you post the output of:

ls -la /media/sambaa/fisiere/var/www/

Also, double check the share permissions on the server side of things.

[TaTaE]

Can you post the output of:

ls -la /media/sambaa/fisiere/var/www/

Also, double check the share permissions on the server side of things.

Thank you for your suggestions. I have checked and indeed, I was using a limited user account. When using Domain Administrator to mount the share, I was then able to delete those pesky folders. The ghosted files also disappeared after changing the user for mounting.

Thank you a lot and sorry for my lack of attention,

[PaulHuffman]

I took out the space and added the comma. I'm not using a gui editor. I'm such a dinosaur I still use vi. Now the fstab lines are like

//paule6500/elevation /home/paul/elevation cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_
mode=0777,dir_ mode=0777 0 0 
//paule6500/docs /home/paul/pauldocs cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0
777,dir_ mode=0777 0 0 
//paule6500/avdata /home/paul/avdata cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0
777,dir_ mode=0777 0 0

I umount ed one of my read only mounts. It disappeared from the desktop. Then tried mount -a and got messages

[mntent]: line 14 in /etc/fstab is bad
[mntent]: line 15 in /etc/fstab is bad
[mntent]: line 16 in /etc/fstab is bad

Rebooted, now all my previously persistent samba mounts have disappeared from the desktop.

[dmizer]

I took out the space and added the comma. I'm not using a gui editor. I'm such a dinosaur I still use vi. Now the fstab lines are like

//paule6500/elevation /home/paul/elevation cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_
mode=0777,dir_ mode=0777 0 0 
//paule6500/docs /home/paul/pauldocs cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0
777,dir_ mode=0777 0 0 
//paule6500/avdata /home/paul/avdata cifs credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,file_mode=0
777,dir_ mode=0777 0 0

Your fstab line still wraps to the next line after file_ (probably an arbitrary space) so you'll have to fix that too. The mount line must be all on the same line or it will error. It also looks like you also have an arbitrary space after dir_ so this will need to be fixed as well.

Let me know if that works for you. Not sure why vi has included these, but if you continue to have problems, I suggest trying nano instead.

[PaulHuffman]

Your fstab line still wraps to the next line after file_ (probably an arbitrary space) so you'll have to fix that too. The mount line must be all on the same line or it will error. It also looks like you also have an arbitrary space after dir_ so this will need to be fixed as well.

Let me know if that works for you. Not sure why vi has included these, but if you continue to have problems, I suggest trying nano instead.

I assure you that the mount lines are not split after file_ although they might look that way in this forum's code blocks.

The problem was the extra space after dir_ . Good eye. No more errors from mount -a . And now the mounts are rw. Thanks for all your help.

[kamiller42]

This guide was very helpful to me, especially this part...

"Although smbfs is no longer part of Ubuntu, smbfs is still the metapackage which contains all the dependencies necessary for using cifs to mount Samba shares. Ubuntu does allow for some cifs functionality out of the box, so it may seem like this command is not necessary, but the smbfs metapackage is critical for this howto. Even if you are positive you DO have the smbfs metapackage installed, run this command anyway."

It was driving me mad as to why my credentials file was not working. That paragraph is why. Since I seemed able to browse to and manually amount shares on my Ubuntu server, I didn't think the client needed to install smbfs.

[matt.s.wise]

Glad I came across this post - I was having the mount I/O error and had tried all sorts of combination of options - the nounix works!! cheers

When I don't use the "nounix" option I get this error message:

mount error(5): Input/output error
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g.man mount.cifs)

If I use the fstab line that you suggested, I get the same problem, not being able to overwrite an excisting file with another version of it, nor
being able to delete a directory with something in it from nautilus or thunar. (these programs sometimes don't respond anymore)