Package smbfs and smbmount missing since cifs-utils-5.5

[Pablo Hörtner]

It seems that package smbfs got removed in builds newer than cifs-utils-5.1-1ubuntu1 (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/quantal/+package/smbfs) without creating a transitional package. The smbmount has also been removed without replacement.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: cifs-utils 2:5.5-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-21.32-generic 3.5.7.1
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-21-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu9
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Jan 2 14:37:25 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-01-15 (352 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" - Release amd64 (20111120)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: cifs-utils
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Dave Vree (hdave)]

workaround is to install cifs-utils and do something like this:

sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.0.1/USB /home/user/USB

found details in this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2073765

Pretty incredible that a package this basic just got dropped with no warning or transition.

[bastafidli (ubuntu-bastafidli)]

What was suggested is helpful but not really a workaround, for all scenarios since it requires sudo. smbmount allowed regular user to mount SMB share. Before I had in my rc.local following

smbmount //192.168.2.100/archive /mnt/archive -o guest

which worked. It cannot be just replaced with

mount -t cifs //192.168.2.100/archive /mnt/archive -o guest
nor
sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.2.100/archive /mnt/archive -o guest

Any way to restore smbmount back?

[chris (ign-christian)]

Possibly not a bug. I think the correct command should be: mount.cifs //192.168.2.100/archive /mnt/archive -o guest

I'm using that kind of command in my rc.local with Ubuntu 12.04

[bastafidli (ubuntu-bastafidli)]

did tried it by installing cifs-utils package. First of all, it seems that there was a change in cifs client and now the following command line is required to mount

sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.2.100/archive /mnt/archive -o guest,sec=ntlmv2

This mounts just fine, but of course cannotbe in /etc/rc.local in 13.10

This is what I get when running from command line your suggested command

mount.cifs //192.168.2.100/archive /mnt/archive -o guest,sec=ntlmv2
mount.cifs: permission denied: no match for /mnt/archive found in /etc/fstab

It works only if run with sudo

sudo mount.cifs //192.168.2.100/archive /mnt/archive -o guest,sec=ntlmv2

which is equivalent to what I have done originally. So as far as I can tell, the functionality that smbmount was provided is still unavailable in 13.10 with no workaround.

[Christopher A. Chavez (chrstphrchvz)]

There are varying instructions out there, but it may be the case that /usr/bin/smbmount had its permissions set specifically so that non-root users could execute it and mount shares, as explained in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Samba/SambaClientGuide . In that same guide there are ways to allow non-root access for mount.cifs, such as by using groups (rather than chmod-ing the executable), and to automatically mount a share on startup (by using /etc/fstab, not /etc/rc.local).

[Jelmer Vernooij (jelmer)]

There are no plans to revive smbfs or smbmount - sorry.