Mount SMB Shares on Debian

Mount an SMB share from Windows, macOS, or a storage appliance on Debian when a FileWave workflow needs network-backed storage, such as an additional backup destination. Confirm the share is reachable and has enough capacity before relying on it for backups.

Step-by-Step Guide for Debian

Mounting Windows Shares

1. Install CIFS Utilities: Open a terminal and install the CIFS utilities package if it's not already installed.

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install cifs-utils
   

2. Mount the Windows Share: Use the mount command to mount the Windows share. Replace the placeholders with your actual values.

   sudo mount -t cifs //yourIPAddress/yoursharedfolder /yourfoldertomount -o credentials=/etc/cifs-credentials
   

Mounting macOS Shares

1. Install CIFS Utilities: Ensure the CIFS utilities package is installed (this step is the same as above).

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install cifs-utils
   

2. Mount the macOS Share: Use the mount command to mount the macOS share. Replace the placeholders with your actual values.

   sudo mount -t cifs //yourIPAddress/yoursharedfolder /yourfoldertomount -o credentials=/etc/cifs-credentials,nounix,sec=ntlmssp
   

Creating and Sharing a Folder

1. Create a Folder: Create the folder where you want to mount the share.

   sudo mkdir /yourfoldertomount
   

2. Replace the Placeholder: Replace yourfoldertomount with the actual path of the folder you created in the mount commands above.

Example

If you want to mount a Windows share with IP 192.168.1.100 and shared folder name backup to a local directory /mnt/backup:

1. Create Local Directory:

   sudo mkdir /mnt/backup
   

2. Mount the Share:

   sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.100/backup /mnt/backup -o credentials=/etc/cifs-credentials
   

Similarly, for a macOS share:

1. Create Local Directory:

   sudo mkdir /mnt/backup
   

2. Mount the Share:

   sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.100/backup /mnt/backup -o credentials=/etc/cifs-credentials,nounix,sec=ntlmssp
   

Additional Tips

• FSTAB Entry for Persistent Mounts: To make the mount persistent across reboots, add an entry to /etc/fstab:

  //yourIPAddress/yoursharedfolder /yourfoldertomount cifs username=yourusername,password=yourpassword,nounix,sec=ntlmssp 0 0
  

• Protect the credentials: Use a root-readable credentials file rather than putting a password in the command line or /etc/fstab:

  //yourIPAddress/yoursharedfolder /yourfoldertomount cifs credentials=/etc/cifs-credentials,nounix,sec=ntlmssp 0 0
  

  And create /etc/cifs-credentials with the following content:

  username=yourusername
  password=yourpassword
  

  Ensure the credentials file has appropriate permissions:

  sudo chown root:root /etc/cifs-credentials
  sudo chmod 600 /etc/cifs-credentials
  

  Test the mount, create and remove a small test file, and confirm that the expected backup process can write to the mounted path. A successful mount alone does not prove the backup account has the required permissions.

CentOS Details

If you are on CentOS and are migrating off of it and need to do it here is the old documentation on this same process:

1. For Linux to Windows:
   
   1. mount -t cifs -o username=yourusername,password=yourpassword //yourIPAdress/yoursharedfolder /yourfoldertomount
2. For  Linux to macOS
   
   1. sudo yum install cifs-utils 
   2. mount -t cifs //yourIPAddress/yoursharedfolder /yourfoldertomount -o username=yourusername,password=yourpassword,nounix,sec=ntlmssp

Create a folder and share it then replace this value "yourfoldertomount" with the right shared folder name.

Related Content

• FileWave Server Backup and Restore