Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

[pwabrahams]

I have a Samba share listed in /etc/fstab as follows:

hpmediavault:FileShare /mediavault cifs user,users,atime,auto,rw,nodev,pass='' 0 0

. It doesn't get mounted on bootup, but I'm able to mount it later on with the obvious mount /mediavault. What can I do to get it mounted automatically on bootup?

[kubicle]

Re: Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

try adding "_netdev" option

from man mount:

_netdev
The filesystem resides on a device that requires network access (used to prevent the system from attempting to mount these filesystems until the network has been enabled on the system).

[flarson]

Re: Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

I am amazed it mounts at all. The hpmediavault:FileShare is not like any notation I have seen, which may just mean my smb knowledge is dated.

I think that with options user and users it will not get mounted at boot as the user is unknown. If your purpose is to allow a user to read and write to it you should mount it on a mount point owned by that user and us the uid= gid= options.

[pwabrahams]

Modified fstab but still no success

Using the advice from this thread, I changed the fstab line to:

hpmediavault:FileShare /mediavault cifs defaults,guest,_netdev 0 0

But I still don't get /mediavault mounted on bootup.

I tried putting user back in and got this:

pwa@Lepiota:~$ mount /mediavault
mount error: permission denied or not superuser and mount.cifs not installed SUID
pwa@Lepiota:~$ ls -l $(which mount.cifs)
-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root 23340 2008-10-10 12:56 /sbin/mount.cifs
p

[flarson]

Re: Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

Mixing advise from 2 sources is not likely to work and it didn't.
Quoting from man mount.cifs
The mount.cifs utility attaches the UNC name (exported network resource) specified as service (using //server/share syntax, where "server" is the server
name or IP address and "share" is the name of the share) to the local directory mount-point.

I have trouble seeing that in hpmediavault:FileShare. If there is something I am not aware of, like a new syntax, please enlighten me. Otherwise I would suggest an fstab line something like
//hpmediavault/FileShare /mediavault cifs rw,uid-1000,gid=1000

and then /mediavault should be owned by user 1000 and group 1000. You may well need to supply a username and password for the share in which case you can add
credentials=/home/user/.smb_creds to the options and then ~/.smb_creds looks like

username=windows user
password=windows password

[pwabrahams]

I think it's a timing problem, not a permissions problem

I changed the fstab line to use //hpmediavault/FileShare, but it made no difference. I also observed that if I execute mount -a as root once the system is up and running, /mediavault gets mounted correctly, so it seems very unlikely that faulty permissions are the cause of the problem.

Apparently _netdev doesn't play well with CIFS, because /var/log/messages contained this line:

Mar 31 18:50:59 Lepiota kernel: [ 223.468987] CIFS: Unknown mount option _netdev

Moreover, a grep search on that logfile looking for "mediavault" found nothing at all, so apparently CIFS mounts don't get logged except for certain errors they might generate.

I think that what I need is code like the following in some system initialization file that gets executed as late as possible during bootup:

(while "network not up"; do sleep 10; done
mount -a
) &

The idea is to start a process that waits for the network to start up, then mounts everything again.
But I don't know where to put that code. It would be even better if I could test explicitly if the mount succeeds.

[flarson]

Re: Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

That already happens. Look in /etc/init.d/mountnfs.sh.

[kubicle]

Re: I think it's a timing problem, not a permissions problem

As a temporary workaround, you can try putting your mount command in /etc/rc.local (this is executed last in the boot process) so your network should be up.

I'd still check the order of Sxxmountall/Sxxnetworking/Sxxmountnfs startup links in /etc/rcS.d:
Sxxmountall should run first (and exlude filesystems with _netdev option)
then Sxxnetworking, and Sxxmountnfs should be run after networking.

You can even try increasing the number for Sxxmountnfs (and Sxxmountnfs-bootclean) to bump them a little further in the boot process (you can try S60 and S61 respectively). This may give your network a bit more time to get up before trying to mount.

[pwabrahams]

No mountnfs.sh in my copy of /etc/init.d at least

root@Lepiota:/etc/rcS.d# ls /etc/init.d/ | grep nfs
mountkernfs.sh
mountnfs-bootclean.sh
nfs-common
umountnfs.sh
waitnfs.sh
root@Lepiota:/etc/rcS.d# find /etc -name "*mountnfs*"
/etc/network/if-up.d/mountnfs
/etc/rcS.d/S46mountnfs-bootclean.sh
/etc/rc0.d/S31umountnfs.sh
/etc/rc6.d/S31umountnfs.sh
/etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh
/etc/init.d/mountnfs-bootclean.sh
root@Lepiota:/etc/rcS.d#

Perhaps there's actually a bug here (or at least a versioning problem).

In any event, I'll try just sticking a mount -a -t nfs,cifsl at the end of the bootup sequence. I don't see how it could hurt (or am I missing something?).

[flarson]

Re: Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

Quoting from the top of /etc/init.d/mountnfs.sh
# Description: Network file systems are mounted by
# /etc/network/if-up.d/mountnfs in the background
# when interfaces are brought up; this script waits
# for them to be mounted before carrying on.
#

[kubicle]

Re: Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

Quoting from the top of /etc/init.d/mountnfs.sh
# Description: Network file systems are mounted by
# /etc/network/if-up.d/mountnfs in the background
# when interfaces are brought up; this script waits
# for them to be mounted before carrying on.
#

Good pick. As it is, moving the startup link around is probably of little use.

Perhaps there's actually a bug here (or at least a versioning problem).

Could be that things are different in Hardy 8.04 (the 'waitnfs' script could be doing the same thing as mountnfs...I don't have hardy so I can't check) anyway, you can try reinstalling "initscripts" package to make sure all the right scripts are installed.

In any event, I'll try just sticking a mount -a -t nfs,cifsl at the end of the bootup sequence. I don't see how it could hurt (or am I missing something?).

It shouldn't hurt. Sort of a "hackish workaround"™, but if it works.

[pwabrahams]

No mountnfs.sh even after reinstallation, waitnfs.sh doesn't do it

I reinstalled the initscripts and again did a search for mountnfs.sh. It wasn't there. So I looked at waitnfs.sh. It says:

# Short-Description: Wait for critical network file systems to be mounted
# Description:    Network file systems are mounted in the background when
#          interfaces are brought up; this script waits for
#          those among them which are critical for booting to be
#          mounted before carrying on.
#          Specifically, it will wait for file systems mounted
#          on /usr, /usr/*, /var, /var/*
#          This script WILL NOT wait on other network file which are
#          mounted elsewhere!

Since waitnfs.sh only looks at critical file systems, it does seem that the lack of mountnfs.sh is a versioning bug. Whether mountnfs.sh, if installed, would solve my problem remains to be shown.

[flarson]

Re: Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

The init scripts are not moved around. The way the init system works is that the scripts are in /etc/init.d and to select which get run when the system is entering or leaving a runlevel symbolic links are created in the runlevel directory, Sxxscript in /etc/rc2.d will cause script to run with the start argument when runlevel 2 is entered. Kxxscript in tha same directory will cause script to be run with the stop argument when runlevel 2 is entered.

The default runlevel for Debian (Kubuntu) is 2. /etc/rcS.d is for system scripts that need to run earlier.

/etc/init.d/mountnfs.sh is part of the package initscripts. I don't have an Intrepid box to check but I am almost certain that the file is there.

[pwabrahams]

Where is mountnfs.sh?

/etc/init.d/mountnfs.sh is part of the package initscripts. I don't have an Intrepid box to check but I am almost certain that the file is there.

Could it be that the file is in Intrepid but not in Hardy (8.04.2)? I did a find search for it after reinstalling initscripts and still came up empty-handed.

[flarson]

Re: Mounting cifs share from /etc/fstab on boot

It could be. I would be very surprised if that is true.
dpkg -L initscripts
will list the files in that package. If it is not in there then it is not.
dpkg -L initscripts | grep nfs
should make it very easy to see.