argument "credentials=..." doesn't work any more in fstab

[Dietmar Winkler]

Binary package hint: mount

Hi,

I just converted my Breezy machine into a "dapper". Unfortunately I'm not able to use my old fstab as it was for mounting windows shares. In Breezy it was possible to put the account data of a windows share in a file (e.g. "accdata" which can be kept save) with the content

username=<username>
password=<password>

the entry of my fstab looks like this:

//Server/Share /mnt/Winshare cifs iocharset=utf8,user,credentials=/path/to/accdata,uid=imexil,gid=imexil,auto 0 0

This worked fine in breezy. However in Dapper it won't and I have to provide the username and password in clear text in the fstab like this:

//Server/Share /mnt/Winshare cifs iocharset=utf8,user,username=<username>,password=<password>,uid=imexil,gid=imexil,auto 0 0

So I guess this must be a bug of mount.cifs

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

mount.cifs is in the samba package; reassigning.

Please explain in what way it doesn't work, including exact copies of any error messages.

[Ian Jackson (ijackson)]

I diffed the relevant bits of the samba source and nothing relevant appears to have changed between breezy and dapper. It is likely that the symptoms are caused by something else.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Perhaps the file isn't accessible at the point in the boot process when the filesystem is mounted?

[Dietmar Winkler (dietmarw)]

The credential file is accessible I've just repeated the mount in two ways:

First with fstab looking like this:
//Server/Share /mnt/Share cifs iocharset=utf8,user,username=dietmarw,password=password,uid=dietmarw,gid=dietmarw,auto 0 0

This works fine.

Second with fstab looking like this:
//Server/Share /mnt/Share cifs iocharset=utf8,user,credentials=/home/dietmarw/.smb/myacc,uid=dietmarw,gid=dietmarw,auto 0 0

This gives:
root@HeX:/etc# mount /mnt/ForschungMDT/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //130.149.48.9/ForschungMDT, missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so

So dmesg shows:
[18802744.064000] CIFS VFS: No username specified
[18802744.064000] CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -22

But the credential file is setup conforming to the manual (and worked on breezy as is) and looks like this:

username=dietmarw
password=password

This actually happend to collegue of mine in the exact same way after he had upgraded from breezy to dapper.

[Vipul Delwadia (vipul-delwadia)]

I can confirm this for edgy as well, I currently do not have access to the machine but I can post the exact error output if needed.

Vipul

[Serge van Ginderachter (svg)]

I confirm this behaviour - in Edgy, don't have a Dapper to check - when
mount as fs type 'cifs'. But it works using 'smbfs'. As I still used fs
type 'smbfs' I didn't notice any problem, until now when I tested for
this bug now.

===
serge@cyberlab:~$ sudo mount /home/serge/Network/SERGE/
mount error 13 = Permission denied
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g.man mount.cifs)
# changing back to smbfs
serge@cyberlab:~$ sudo vi /etc/fstab
serge@cyberlab:~$ sudo mount /home/serge/Network/SERGE/
===

Server is a Debian Sarge default Samba daemon. I'm not sure to what the
difference is with smbfs & cifs.

        Serge

--
Serge van Ginderachter http://www.vanginderachter.be/

On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray,
Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right
answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of
confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles
Babbage (1791-1871)

[Dietmar Winkler (dietmarw)]

Changed to confirmed since Serge had the same problem on Edgy.

[Sridhar Dhanapalan (sridhar)]

I am using Edgy and this problem does not exist for me. I have cifs mounts that use credentials files listed in /etc/fstab.

[Dietmar Winkler (dietmarw)]

Triggered by the last comment I did a bit more testing and searching the web and found finally the solution for the problem here: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-79612.html

It was simply the missing package 'smbfs'. After installing it everything works fine and this bug can finally be closed.

[Dietmar Winkler (dietmarw)]

'sudo apt-get install smbfs' solves this issue.

[Mathias Gug (mathiaz)]

Closing this bug as mentioned by the reporter.

The credentials option works in dapper.

[dah bien-hwa (dahbien-hwa)]

Hm now got this "bug" on a 12.04. Why is CIFS saying it doesn't find a username, when in fact it doesn't find needed binaries? In my opinion, the log output is wrong, so there is a bug there (although it is a minor one).