Table of Contents
2022-11-30: Please note that I have discovered, that this howto is more complicated than it needs to be and is not taking advantage of the flexibility offered by autofs. But… It will work for ONE user who needs shares from ONE server mounted into his/her/… home.
Anyway, this howto needs refactoring… stay tuned.
automount CIFS share with autofs
This HowTo will prepare a Linux client to automatically mount CIFS shares from a remote Samba server on access/demand. Since I am mounting different filesystems, I have structured my mountpoints as follows:
/ ├── home │ ├── USER │ │ ├── mnt │ │ │ ├── cifs │ │ │ │ ├── smb-server-a.fqdn │ │ │ │ │ ├── share-a │ │ │ │ │ ├── share-b │ │ │ │ │ └── share-c │ │ │ │ ├── smb-server-b.fqdn │ │ │ │ │ ├── share-b │ │ │ │ │ ├── share-b │ │ │ │ │ └── share-c │ │ │ ├── sshfs │ │ │ │ ├── ssh-server-a.fqdn
From here on, I will use “mysambaserver.local” as the Samba servers FQDN, “mysambaserver” as its hostname, “myusername” as my username, “mygroup” as group and “myPassWord” as the password.
At time of writing, the server is running Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS and the client is running Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS.
This HowTo got compiled by trial and error and from these sources:
Install Required packages, check supported filesystems
Install the required packages on the client (gigolo is just “nice to have”) and check if its kernel supports CIFS.
zypper install autofs cifs-utils gigolo gvfs-backends gvfs-fuse fuse ls -1 /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/fs | grep "cifs"
cifs
Check remote SAMBA connection
Check remote connection to the Samba server:
smbclient -N -L //<mysambaserver.local>/
Sharename Type Comment --------- ---- ------- share-a Disk Share A share-b Disk Share B share-c Disk Share C IPC$ IPC IPC Service (mysambaserver server (Samba, Ubuntu)) SMB1 disabled -- no workgroup available
Check authenticated login
Check an authenticated remote login. If the command line asks for a password, enter the SMB password which is configured for the user at the Samba server (via smbpasswd).
smbclient -U <myusername> -L //<mysambaserver.local>/
Enter WORKGROUP\myusername's password: [myPassWord] <--- enter the password Sharename Type Comment --------- ---- ------- share-a Disk Share A share-b Disk Share B share-c Disk Share C IPC$ IPC IPC Service (mysambaserver server (Samba, Ubuntu)) SMB1 disabled -- no workgroup available
Create mount point
Create the mount point in the users home directory:
mkdir -pv /home/<myusername>/mnt/cifs chown -R <myusername>:<mygroup> /home/<myusername>/mnt/
autofs configuration
The configuration consists of the master map file (/etc/auto.master), the corresponding map file (/etc/auto.mysambaserver-cifs) and the key file which contains the credentials for authentication. In the following we will configure autofs to mount shares to /home/<myusername>/mnt/cifs/<mysambaserver.local>/<share-name>.
Map file
Create the mapfile
vim /etc/auto.<mysambaserver>-cifs
#!/bin/bash # $Id$ # This file must be executable to work! chmod 755! set -x KEY="${1}" # Note: create a cred file for each windows/Samba-Server in your network # which requires password authentification. The file should contain # exactly two lines: # username=user # password=***** # Please don't use blank spaces to separate the equal sign from the # user account name or password. CREDFILE="/etc/autofs/keys/${KEY}" # # !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PAY ATTENTION TO the CIFS VERSION in MOUNTOPTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! # https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=201727 # https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=211987 # http://krisko210.blogspot.com/2016/06/autofs-automount-nfs-share.html # Note: Use cifs instead of smbfs: MOUNTOPTS="-fstype=cifs,file_mode=0644,dir_mode=0755,nounix,uid=1000,gid=1000" SMBCLIENTOPTS="" for EACH in /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin do if [ -x $EACH/smbclient ] then SMBCLIENT=$EACH/smbclient break fi done [ -x $SMBCLIENT ] || exit 1 if [ -e "${CREDFILE}" ] then MOUNTOPTS=$MOUNTOPTS",credentials=${CREDFILE}" SMBCLIENTOPTS="-A "$CREDFILE else SMBCLIENTOPTS="-N" fi $SMBCLIENT $SMBCLIENTOPTS -gL "${KEY}" 2>/dev/null \ | awk -v key="$KEY" -v opts="${MOUNTOPTS}" -F'|' -- ' BEGIN { ORS=""; first=1 } /Disk/ { if (first) { print opts; first=0 }; gsub(/ /, "\\ ", $2); sub(/\$/, "\\$", $2); print " \\\n\t /" $2, "://" key "/" $2 } END { if (!first) print "\n"; else exit 1 } '
chmod 755 /etc/auto.<mysambaserver>-cifs
This file is a slightly modified version of the file auto.smb which usually comes as part of the autofs package. You need to modify the line defining the mountopts above and change userid and groupid to the uid/gid of your personal account.
key file
Now you have to give autofs the credentials needed to access shares on your network. To do this create a key file
mkdir -pv /etc/autofs/keys/ vim /etc/autofs/keys/<mysambaserver.local>
username=<myusername> password=<myPassWord>
chown root:root /etc/autofs/keys/<mysambaserver.local> chmod 600 /etc/autofs/keys/<mysambaserver.local>
Master-Map
The maps to be monitored are specified in this file. Execute the following command to append the line “/home/myusername/mnt/cifs /etc/auto.mysambaserver-cifs –timeout=60” at the end of the /etc/auto.master file:
echo "/home/<myusername>/mnt/cifs /etc/auto.<mysamabaserver>-cifs --timeout=60 --ghost" >>/etc/auto.master
The syntax here is: <Directory> <Map-File> [Parameter] The shares should be unmounted after an inactivity of 60 seconds (–timeout=60) and empty directories should be created for the individual shares before mounting (–ghost).
Debugging
for debugging output stop the daemon and interactively start autofs with verbose output enabled
service autofs stop automount -f -vYou can restart autofs with
systemctl enable autofs service autofs start
Test
Use the following command to test if your setup is working
ls -als /home/<myusername>/mnt/cifs/<mysambaserver.fqdn>/<share-name>
Script
This script automates the whole process above. Please keep in mind to change the variables to fit your environment.
#!/bin/bash # # Variables # _SMB_FQDN="your.smbserver.fqdn" # set to FQDN of your SMB-Server _SMB_USER="your SMB username" # set to your username _SMB_PASS="your SMB password" # set to your password _LOCAL_USER="your username on local machine" # set to your local username _LOCAL_GROUP="your local group" # set to your local group _SMB_MOUNTPOINT="/home/${_LOCAL_USER}/mnt/cifs" # set to path of your desired SMB base-mountpoint _BASE_MOUNTPOINT="/home/${_LOCAL_USER}/mnt" # don't touch _UNAME="$(uname -r)" _CIFSKM="/lib/modules/${_UNAME}/kernel/fs/cifs/cifs.ko.xz" _UID="$(id -u ${_LOCAL_USER})" _GID="$(id -g ${_LOCAL_USER})" zypper install -y autofs cifs-utils gigolo gvfs-backends gvfs-fuse fuse # exit if cifs kernel module is not present [ -f "${_CIFSKM}" ] || { echo "${_CIFSKM} does not exist. Exiting."; exit 1; } # test unauthenticated connection to SMB server smbclient -N -L //"${_SMB_FQDN}"/ > /dev/null 2>&1 || { echo "Unauthenticated connection to ${_SMB_FQDN} failed. Exiting."; exit 1; } # test authenticated connection to SMB server smbclient --user="${_SMB_USER}%${_SMB_PASS}" -L //"${_SMB_FQDN}"/ > /dev/null 2>&1 || { echo "Authenticated connection to ${_SMB_FQDN} failed. Exiting."; exit 1; } # create mountpoint, set permissions mkdir -pv "${_SMB_MOUNTPOINT}" chown -R "${_LOCAL_USER}":"${_LOCAL_GROUP}" "${_BASE_MOUNTPOINT}" # create the mapfile cat > /etc/auto."${_SMB_FQDN}"-cifs << "ENDOFFILE" #!/bin/bash # $Id$ # This file must be executable to work! chmod 755! #set -x KEY="${1}" # Note: create a cred file for each windows/Samba-Server in your network # which requires password authentification. The file should contain # exactly two lines: # username=user # password=***** # Please don't use blank spaces to separate the equal sign from the # user account name or password. CREDFILE="/etc/autofs/keys/${KEY}" # # !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PAY ATTENTION TO the CIFS VERSION in MOUNTOPTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! # https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=201727 # https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=211987 # http://krisko210.blogspot.com/2016/06/autofs-automount-nfs-share.html # Note: Use cifs instead of smbfs: MOUNTOPTS="-fstype=cifs,file_mode=0644,dir_mode=0755,nounix,uid=____UID____,gid=____GID____" SMBCLIENTOPTS="" for EACH in /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin do if [ -x $EACH/smbclient ] then SMBCLIENT=$EACH/smbclient break fi done [ -x $SMBCLIENT ] || exit 1 if [ -e "${CREDFILE}" ] then MOUNTOPTS=$MOUNTOPTS",credentials=${CREDFILE}" SMBCLIENTOPTS="-A "$CREDFILE else SMBCLIENTOPTS="-N" fi $SMBCLIENT $SMBCLIENTOPTS -gL "${KEY}" 2>/dev/null \ | awk -v key="$KEY" -v opts="${MOUNTOPTS}" -F'|' -- ' BEGIN { ORS=""; first=1 } /Disk/ { if (first) { print opts; first=0 }; gsub(/ /, "\\ ", $2); sub(/\$/, "\\$", $2); print " \\\n\t /" $2, "://" key "/" $2 } END { if (!first) print "\n"; else exit 1 } ' ENDOFFILE # insert UID and GID sed -i "s/____UID____/${_UID}/" /etc/auto."${_SMB_FQDN}"-cifs sed -i "s/____GID____/${_GID}/" /etc/auto."${_SMB_FQDN}"-cifs # set permissions for mapfile chmod 755 /etc/auto."${_SMB_FQDN}"-cifs # create keyfile mkdir -pv /etc/autofs/keys/ cat > /etc/autofs/keys/"${_SMB_FQDN}" << "ENDOFFILE" username=____USERNAME____ password=____PASSWORD____ ENDOFFILE # insert username and password sed -i "s/____USERNAME____/${_SMB_USER}/" /etc/autofs/keys/"${_SMB_FQDN}" sed -i "s/____PASSWORD____/${_SMB_PASS}/" /etc/autofs/keys/"${_SMB_FQDN}" # set permissions for keyfile chown root:root /etc/autofs/keys/"${_SMB_FQDN}" chmod 600 /etc/autofs/keys/"${_SMB_FQDN}" # Master-Map echo "${_SMB_MOUNTPOINT} /etc/auto.${_SMB_FQDN}-cifs --timeout=60 --ghost" >>/etc/auto.master systemctl enable autofs service autofs start
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