samba - Feb 2008 - cifs verses smbfs for Linux clients

I am somewhat confused...

I understand that the preferred method to mount a Samba share with a Linux
client is to use "mount -t cifs" rather than "mount -t
smbfs".

I get the impression that smbfs is samba.org developed code where as cifs is
from elsewhere. Thus the point of confusion. Why is samba.org not developing the
preferred code in this case?

A sub question to that main one is a nagging thought of needing to add the
Debian / Ubuntu smbfs package to Linux client systems issuing "mount -t
cifs". If cifs really is from elsewhere, and smbfs is
"bad evil", why the interdependency?

Thanks!
-- 
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/

Michael Lueck wrote:
> I am somewhat confused...
> 
> I understand that the preferred method to mount a Samba share with a 
> Linux client is to use "mount -t cifs" rather than "mount -t
smbfs".
> 
> I get the impression that smbfs is samba.org developed code where as 
> cifs is from elsewhere. Thus the point of confusion. Why is samba.org 
> not developing the preferred code in this case?
> 
> A sub question to that main one is a nagging thought of needing to add 
> the Debian / Ubuntu smbfs package to Linux client systems issuing
"mount
> -t cifs". If cifs really is from elsewhere, and smbfs is "bad
evil", why
> the interdependency?
> 
> Thanks!
If I recall correctly smbfs was deprecated in favor of cifs when cifs 
was made a permanent part of the kernel in the 2.4 or 2.4-2.6 kernel. 
This provided a uniform way to implement an smbfs mount through the 
kernel instead or relying on package dependent smbmount.

Whether you are doing:

mount -t smbfs; or
mount -t cifs   (also mount.cifs)

your are accomplishing the same thing. I used smbmount for a long time, 
then cifs was made the standard and I have used cifs since then. I have 
no complaints.

 From man mount:

Since   various   versions  of  the  smbmount  program  have  different 
  calling  conventions, /sbin/mount.smbfs may have to be a shell script 
that sets up the desired call.


-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D., P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com

On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 06:10:47PM -0500, Michael Lueck
wrote:
> I get the impression that smbfs is samba.org developed code where as cifs 
> is from elsewhere. Thus the point of confusion. Why is samba.org not 
> developing the preferred code in this case?
The problem is -- where would you host smbmount if we
removed it from the samba release?

Volker
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url :
http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/attachments/20080219/6022c0ec/attachment.bin

Volker Lendecke wrote:
> The problem is -- where would you host smbmount if we
> removed it from the samba release?
hhhmmm, I see smbmount is indeed a file in the smbfs package.

So smbmount is relied on by cifs? In that case I can see the need to install
smbfs in order to be able to "mount -t cifs".

Thanks,

-- 
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/

Michael Lueck wrote:
> I am somewhat confused...
> 
> I understand that the preferred method to mount a Samba share with a
> Linux client is to use "mount -t cifs" rather than "mount -t
smbfs".
> 
> I get the impression that smbfs is samba.org developed code where as
> cifs is from elsewhere. Thus the point of confusion. Why is samba.org
> not developing the preferred code in this case?
> 
> A sub question to that main one is a nagging thought of needing to add
> the Debian / Ubuntu smbfs package to Linux client systems issuing
"mount
> -t cifs". If cifs really is from elsewhere, and smbfs is "bad
evil", why
> the interdependency?
> 
> Thanks!
As I know it, cifs-mount (/sbin/mount.cifs) is maintained by the samba
team as the replacement for the older smbfs.  I can't even find smbmnt
in opensuse 10.3.

I wish I could point you to a release notes for this.

Regards, Doug

On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 18:10 -0500, Michael Lueck wrote:
> I am somewhat confused...
> 
> I understand that the preferred method to mount a Samba share with a
> Linux client is to use "mount -t cifs" rather than "mount -t
smbfs".
> 
> I get the impression that smbfs is samba.org developed code where as
> cifs is from elsewhere. Thus the point of confusion. Why is samba.org
> not developing the preferred code in this case?
smbfs is a kernel module like cifs, they are both outside of the samba
project proper.

smbfs is the old unmaintained (since long) code.
cifs is the maintained kernel driver, and has been written by Steve
French, a Samba Team member, and maintained by him within the Linux
kernel project.

The user helpers for mounting both are distributed with the samba code
base, the smbfs helper is almost unmaintained, as is the driver. The
mount.cifs helper is maintained.
> A sub question to that main one is a nagging thought of needing to add
> the Debian / Ubuntu smbfs package to Linux client systems issuing
> "mount -t cifs". If cifs really is from elsewhere, and smbfs is 
> "bad evil", why the interdependency?
There is no interdependency at all, when compiling samba you can choose
to build either or both helpers, it is a packaging choice. Most
distributions are slowly killing smbfs and stopping building the
smbmount helper in the samba packages.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce
Samba Team GPL Compliance Officer <simo@samba.org>
Senior Software Engineer at Red Hat Inc. <ssorce@redhat.com>

simo wrote:
> There is no interdependency at all, when compiling samba you can choose
> to build either or both helpers, it is a packaging choice. Most
> distributions are slowly killing smbfs and stopping building the
> smbmount helper in the samba packages.
I unmounted all cifs connections, then I purged the smbfs package off of my
Ubuntu 7.04 desktop.

I tried mounting connections:

/bin/mount -t cifs -o
credentials=/home/mdlueck/.smbcredentials,uid=mdlueck,gid=mdlueck
//ldslnx01/data /mnt/ldslnx01/data/

And received this type of error:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //ldslnx01/data,
        missing codepage or other error
        In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
        dmesg | tail  or so

Thus, the dependency I was referring to. I do not like to be one to argue.
(shrug)

Thanks,

-- 
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/

Am Dienstag, 19. Februar 2008 schrieb Michael Lueck:
> simo wrote:
> 
> > There is no interdependency at all, when compiling samba you can
choose
> > to build either or both helpers, it is a packaging choice. Most
> > distributions are slowly killing smbfs and stopping building the
> > smbmount helper in the samba packages.
> 
> I unmounted all cifs connections, then I purged the smbfs package off of my
Ubuntu 7.04 desktop.
> 
> I tried mounting connections:
> 
> /bin/mount -t cifs -o
credentials=/home/mdlueck/.smbcredentials,uid=mdlueck,gid=mdlueck
//ldslnx01/data /mnt/ldslnx01/data/
> 
> And received this type of error:
> 
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //ldslnx01/data,
>         missing codepage or other error
>         In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
>         dmesg | tail  or so
> 
> Thus, the dependency I was referring to. I do not like to be one to argue.
(shrug)
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -- 
> Michael Lueck
> Lueck Data Systems
> http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/
> 
What kind of smb server is running //ldslnx01/data  ?

Cheers, Guenter

Am Dienstag, 19. Februar 2008 schrieb Guenter Kukkukk:
> Am Dienstag, 19. Februar 2008 schrieb Michael Lueck:
> > 
> > /bin/mount -t cifs -o
credentials=/home/mdlueck/.smbcredentials,uid=mdlueck,gid=mdlueck
//ldslnx01/data /mnt/ldslnx01/data/
> > 
> > And received this type of error:
> > 
> > mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //ldslnx01/data,
> >         missing codepage or other error
> >         In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
> >         dmesg | tail  or so
> 
> What kind of smb server is running //ldslnx01/data  ?
> 
> Cheers, Guenter
This kind of error is reported, when the userland cifs helpers
mount.cifs (and umount.cifs) are not installed - or the symlinks
are not set.

Cheers, Guenter

Michael Lueck wrote:
> simo wrote:
>
>> There is no interdependency at all, when compiling samba you can choose
>> to build either or both helpers, it is a packaging choice. Most
>> distributions are slowly killing smbfs and stopping building the
>> smbmount helper in the samba packages.
>
> I unmounted all cifs connections, then I purged the smbfs package off 
> of my Ubuntu 7.04 desktop.
>
> I tried mounting connections:
>
> /bin/mount -t cifs -o 
> credentials=/home/mdlueck/.smbcredentials,uid=mdlueck,gid=mdlueck 
> //ldslnx01/data /mnt/ldslnx01/data/
>
> And received this type of error:
>
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //ldslnx01/data,
>        missing codepage or other error
>        In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
>        dmesg | tail  or so
>
> Thus, the dependency I was referring to. I do not like to be one to 
> argue. (shrug)
>
> Thanks,
>
This is really a question for your distro maintainers. You need helpers 
(mount.cifs) in order to mount a smbfs or cifs share. As simo mentioned, 
the helpers are a part of samba. How your distro chooses to package and 
name samba/helpers/kernel modules/etc has nothing to do with the samba 
project.

*Michael Heydon - IT Administrator *
michaelh@jaswin.com.au <mailto:michaelh@jaswin.com.au>

On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 19:44 -0500, Michael Lueck wrote:
> simo wrote:
> 
> > There is no interdependency at all, when compiling samba you can
choose
> > to build either or both helpers, it is a packaging choice. Most
> > distributions are slowly killing smbfs and stopping building the
> > smbmount helper in the samba packages.
> 
> I unmounted all cifs connections, then I purged the smbfs package off of my
Ubuntu 7.04 desktop.
> 
> I tried mounting connections:
> 
> /bin/mount -t cifs -o
credentials=/home/mdlueck/.smbcredentials,uid=mdlueck,gid=mdlueck
//ldslnx01/data /mnt/ldslnx01/data/
> 
> And received this type of error:
> 
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //ldslnx01/data,
>         missing codepage or other error
>         In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
>         dmesg | tail  or so
> 
> Thus, the dependency I was referring to. I do not like to be one to argue.
(shrug)
Ask Ubuntu maintainers, they decided to package both helpers in the same
packet, so if you remove one, you remove the other too.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce
Samba Team GPL Compliance Officer <simo@samba.org>
Senior Software Engineer at Red Hat Inc. <ssorce@redhat.com>

simo wrote:
> Ask Ubuntu maintainers, they decided to package both helpers in the same
> packet, so if you remove one, you remove the other too.
"both helpers in the same package" is a sufficient answer to my
question. ("Yes, finally, light bulb goes on!")

I am certainly not going to nit-pick how the Ubuntu packagers decided to do
things, just was trying to fully understand these things.

Thanks!

-- 
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/

On Monday 18 February 2008, Michael Heydon wrote:
> You need helpers
> (mount.cifs) in order to mount a smbfs or cifs share.
Not necessarily. You can, at least with cifs, mount without a helper 
although there is much less flexibility.

-- 
Chris