Problem mounting windows file share

[ee08]

I am trying to install matlab from a windows file share server following the instructions below:

• su to root.
  % su
• Make a directory for mounting the distribution# mkdir -p /mnt/licensed.dist
• Mount the distribution with SMB:
  # mount -t smbfs -o username=PRINCETON\\<netID> //files.princeton.edu/Licensed /mnt/licensed.dist
  
  • All one line, no line breaks
  • Replace <netID> with your Princeton netID
  • You will be prompted for a password. Please enter your Princeton Windows password.
  • If the command does not work, you might not have SMB mount support installed.
  • NOTE: As of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Fedora releases, use 'cifs' instead of 'smbfs' as the -t parameter above.
  
  
• Run the Matlab installation
  # /mnt/licensed.dist/Products/Matlab/R2011a/Unix/install_wrapper.sh

However, when I try the mount it returns the mount usage and the return value is 1 and the mount doesn't work. Any ideas?
Sincerely,
David

[gnometorule]

I haven't done this, but was curious and googled around. Here is how it a similar situation is described by your West Coast competitor:

https://techcommons.stanford.edu/top...e-ubuntu-linux

The more interesting part is if you follow the link on that page back to the ubuntu forums. It appears that 'smfbs' is a package you need to install separately (it also appears it is sort of obsolete and replaced by another program, but you need to of course follow your instructions). So suggestions:

(1) install smfbs
(2) make sure you issue this command being in the right directory, if the dir you made isn't at root.
(3) have a look a the articles for safety.
(4) as -o lists options separated by comma, look closely if you're not missing one (you set UID, passwd, link - is that really not separated by commans?)

Gl.

[ee08]

Thanks for the reply. I had already installed smbfs, but i realized that i needed to add \mnt\licensed.dist to the end, so when I do the following:

mount -t smbfs -o username=PRINCETON\\deis //files.princeton.edu/Licensed/mnt/licensed.dist /mnt/licensed.dist

it returns:

mount error(20): Not a directory
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs)

I get the same error when I do cifs instead of smbfs.
-David

[ee08]

Okay, I think I found the problem, on the website I couldn't tell that there was a space between //files.princeton.edu/Licensed and /mnt/licensed.dist, now it seems to be okay, I'll try to see if the rest works. Thanks again for your help.