[Samba] cifs verses smbfs for Linux clients

[Chris Smith]

On Tuesday 19 February 2008, Lukasz Szybalski wrote:
> That is actually a good point because today I wanted to switch to
> cifs on all my mount scripts for work and I got:
>
> sudo mount -t cifs -o uid=lucas -o username=myusername
> //192.168.1.196/c$ /home/lucas/Desktop/C
>
> mount error 13 = Permission denied
> Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g.man mount.cifs)

There are some differences between cifs and smbfs - the same mount 
syntax can not always be used.

And even within cifs there are differences whether or not one has the 
mount helper available. For instance without the mount.cifs helper one 
needs to use the IP address, with it, one can specify the tcp name. 
With the mount helper one can use a credentials file, without it one 
cannot.

Also user mounts are little trickier under cifs than smbfs.

Anyone having issues with cifs should first RTFM. Unfortunately all is 
not in the man page. See the cifs REAME: /usr/src/linux/fs/cifs/README 
(your kernel source may be in a different path) and the cifs client 
documentation at: 
http://pserver.samba.org/samba/ftp/cifs-cvs/linux-cifs-client-guide.pdf

-- 
Chris