[linux-cifs-client] mount.cifs gives error 20 with old[er] Samba servers, any fixes?

[Jeff Layton]

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:39:25 +0000
Chris G <cl at isbd.net> wrote:

> I am running Fedora 7 which has mount.cifs version: 1.10.
> 
> This works fine with 'real' Windows XP shared files so it would seem
> that it is installed and functional.
> 
> However when I try and mount a network hard drive that runs a Samba
> server I get the error:-
> 
>     mount error 20 = Not a directory
>     Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g.man mount.cifs)
> 

It sounds like the client is unable to get info on this directory. I'd
suspect a permissions issue, but then you'd think that smbfs would have
issues too. One possibility is that unix extensions were negotiated,
but the server doesn't properly support them.

You might try disabling unix extensions (-o nounix on recent kernels).

> Searching Google for this error suggests that it's some sort of
> incompatibility between mount.cifs and older Samba servers.
> 
> I happend to have an old Slackware system which still has smbmount
> from Samba Version 3.0.23c, this mounts my share without problems.
> 
> E.g. the following works from my Slackware system:-
> 
>     smbmount //192.168.1.65/chris /freecom -o
> username=chris,password=xxxxxxx,workgroup=IBMPEERS
> 
> but the mount.cifs on my Fedora system doesn't work:-
> 
>     mount.cifs //192.168.1.65/chris /freecom -o
> username=chris,password=xxxxxxx,workgroup=IBMPEERS mount error 20 =
> Not a directory Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g.man
> mount.cifs)
> 
>     
> 
> 
> Is there any sort of workaround for this problem?  It would be a real
> hassle to get smbmount/mount.smbfs built on Fedora 7.  Yes, I know it
> would be good if the Network Drive could be fixed to work with CIFS
> but I suspect that could be a good long way in the future.
> 

It would be helpful to know why it's failing. You might want to collect
some debugging info while trying to mount:

# modprobe cifs
# echo 7 > /proc/fs/cifs/cifsFYI
# mount.cifs //192.168.1.65/chris /freecom ...
# echo 0 > /proc/fs/cifs/cifsFYI

...then collect the debug output from dmesg and post it here (or try
to track it down yourself). It would also be helpful to know what
kernel version you have and the version of the smbclient package you
have installed.

-- 
Jeff Layton <jlayton at redhat.com>