[linux-cifs-client] Re: Re: Identify a host

[Akemi Yagi]

On Mon, 14 May 2007 16:57:36 -0400, simo wrote:

> On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 21:21 +0100, John G Walker wrote:
> 
>> Now this is what I'm looking for. I ping Fred (where Fred is the name of
>> a server) and ping can't find it.
> 
> This I guess, means Fred is not a DNS name but a NetBIOS name. You may try
> and experiment with libnss_wins in nsswitch.conf
> 
> Simo.

Steve French gave you a thorough explanation for you.  To understand what
your problem is, you need to learn more about the network, particularly
the way a machine is identified on a network; things like DNS, NetBIOS
name, how they are resolved, etc, etc.

As Simo suggested, Fred is not in DNS, which is why mount -t cifs cannot
find it.  In this case, you need to resort to the windows name resolution.
Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf and locate the line that starts with hosts.  Then
add wins on that line.  If you are lucky, this is all you need to do.

This wiki page may be a good starting point for you:

http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Mounting_samba_shares_from_a_unix_client

Akemi