Linux CIFS mount

CIFS, also known as the Common Internet File System, is a variant of SMB (Server Message Block) designed to enable file and folder storage over a small local area network (LAN). Shared access to printers.

Linux comes with the CIFS-Utils package for mounting and managing cross-platform files and printers over the local network using the CIFS protocol. mount.cifs is part of the Linux CIFS-Utils package.

In this tutorial, I will explore how to mount a shared folder on Linux using the Linuxmount.cifs utility.

Please note that the CIFS protocol has been replaced by the SMB2 and SMB3 protocols, which are more secure. In Windows systems, the CIFS protocol is disabled by default but can be activated via the Enable or Disable Windows feature option.

• Installing CIFS utility package on Linux
• Use CIFS to mount shared folders
• Permanent mounting of shared folders
• Uninstall shared folder
• Create shared folders on Mac

Installing CIFS utility package on Linux

To use mount.cifs on Linux, you first need to install its utility package.

Install it on Ubuntu, its flavors and Debian-based distributions.

sudo apt install cifs—utils

On CentOS and Fedora distributions, the dnf package manager will be used.

sudo dnf install cifs—utils

Run the following command to install cifs-utils on Red Hat (RHEL) and Red Hat-based distributions.

sudo yum install cifs—utils

Note: The cifs-utils package is available on all Linux distributions. But for the instructions in this guide, I'm using Ubuntu 22.04. Regardless of the version, the commands used in this guide will work without any errors.

Additionally, in the example below, the shared folder is mounted from Mac to Linux using the mount.cifs utility, however, the process of mounting from Linux and Windows is the same.

Use CIFS to mount shared folders

Mounting a shared folder from a remote computer to Linux requires two steps.

1. Create mount point
2. Mount shared folder to mount point

1. Create a mount point

A mount point refers to a directory that mounts and accesses shared folders from a remote computer. It can be created anywhere on the client system with any name. I'm creating a mount point in the /mnt directory, which is a general purpose mount point for temporarily mounting file systems on Linux.

I am creating another directory /ShareMac as a mount point in /mnt, using the mkdir command with sudo permissions.

Sudo mkdir/mnt/ShareMac

A mount point will be created; the next step is to mount the shared folder from the remote computer to this mount point.

2. Mount the shared folder to the mount point

To mount a shared folder from macOS to Linux, use the mount command with the -t cifs option.

Sudo mount -t cif/mnt/-ousername=

In the above command:

• —t cifs option is used to mount shared folders using the CIFS protocol
• is the IP address of the remote computer (Mac)
• is a shared folder created on the remote computer (Mac)
• /mnt/ is the mount point on the client machine (Linux) [it can be any directory]
• is the username of the remote system

Let us mount the MyFolder folder from the remote computer to the Linux mount point /mnt/ShareMac.

sudo mount—t cifs www.example.com/mnt/ShareMac—o username = sam

When you execute the above command, user sam will be asked for his password. The shared folder MyFolder will be mounted on the /mnt/ShareMac mount point on Linux. However, you won't get any output indicating that the installation completed successfully. Use df -h to check mounted folders.

Df-h

The folder (MyFolder) has been successfully mounted on Linux. Please note that the instructions for creating shared folders on Mac must be as given below in the section Creating shared folders on Mac.

Using the credit option of the mount.cifs utility is a safe way to mount a shared folder. In this method, you save the login credentials in a file that can be passed through the command using the credentials option.

First, create a file in the /etc directory to store the credentials of the remote computer. The file can have any name, I gave it the certificate file name.

sudo nano/etc/credentials—file

Insert credentials:

Username=

password =

Now, use the credentials option after -o in the file path.

Sudo mount -t cif//192.168.18.133/MyFold/mnt/ShareMac -o Credentials=/etc/Credentials-FILE

Permanent mounting of shared folders

On reboot, the mounted folder will be unmounted and you must manually mount it again. If you want to automatically mount shared folders on startup, follow the steps given below.

ALERT: The following method assumes the remote machine/server has a static IP.

To ensure that the shared file system is automatically mounted when the system boots, the fstab file on Linux will be modified.

sudo nano/etc/fstab

Place the following lines in the file.

/share—name/mnt/cifs credit =/etc/credit—file 0 0

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