mount -t smbfs fails with unhelpful error message if smbfs not installed

[Adam Buchbinder]

Without smbfs installed, attempting to mount an SMB share gives this result:

$ sudo mount -t smbfs //servername/share /mnt -o username=user,ip=serverip
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //servername/share,
       missing codepage or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so

dmesg|tail reveals the message:

smbfs: mount_data version 1919251317 is not supported

This was fixed by installing the smbfs package, but the printed errors were not at all helpful in diagnosing the problem. mount should be able to tell that there is no handler available for the type 'smbfs', and report that fact to the user.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Rejecting unnecessary Ubuntu task; don't worry, the bug is still open

[Simon Edwards (simon-simonzone)]

/proc/filesystems shows that smbfs is available even when smbfs is not installed. This makes it hard for GUI tools like the mount editor in kde-guidance to accurately report to the user which filesystems are available and to avoid confusing problems like the one reported here.

smbfs should not be listed in /proc/filesystems if it will not work.

[João Pinto (joaopinto)]

Just to note that this bug is still present on Ubuntu 6.06 .

[amichair (amichai2)]

And on Edgy too.

[Anders Einar Hilden (kagee)]

And on Feisty too.

[Dave Suffling (dsufflin)]

And on Gutsy, too.

[LaMont Jones (lamont)]

The bug is scheduled to be fixed in 2.13.1 from upstream, as well as 2.14. That should be in hardy.

[LaMont Jones (lamont)]

Fixed in 2.13-13ubuntu1

[Michal Suchanek (hramrach)]

How is this fixed in Hardy?

There are still unhelpful messages about wrong filesystem and obscure dmesg messages in Hardy..Jaunty.