Access Windows Shares from Linux

Q. How do I Access Windows share from Linux command prompt? I would like to be able to access shared folders on Windows machines from my Linux system.

A. There are two ways. Use command line tool called smbclient or you can mount windows shares the mount command. Another option is use GUI tools. Please refer previous articles about access windows share from Linux:

( a ) Mount Windows share using mount command

This is simple way to share data between windows and linux system. You would like to access MS-Windows share called //windowsserver/sharename by mounting to /mnt/win directory under Linux system. Type the following command (replace username, windows server name, share name and password with actual values):

# mkdir -p /mnt/share
# mount -t cifs -o username=winntuser,password=mypassword //windowsserver/sharename /mnt/share
# cd /mnt/win
# ls -l

 For the share //windowsserver/sharename to be automatically mounted at every system start (after reboot), insert an option in the file /etc/fstab:

# vi /etc/fstab

 Append following line (written in a single line)

//windowserver/share /mnt/share cifs
auto,gid=users,fmask=0664,dmask=0775,iocharset=iso8859-15, credentials=/etc/sambapasswords 0 0

 Next create the password file /etc/sambapasswords:

#vi /etc/sambapasswords

 Now add following content:

username = winntuser
password = mypassword

 Save and close the file. Make sure only root can access your file:

#chown0.0/etc/sambapasswords

#chmod600/etc/sambapasswords

• -t smbfs : File system type to be mount (outdated, use cifs)
• -t cifs : File system type to be mount
• -o : are options passed to mount command, in this example I had passed two options. First argument is password (vivek) and second argument is password to connect remote windows box
• //windowserver/share : Windows 2000/NT share name
• /mnt/win Linux mount point (to access share after mounting)