mount.cifs(8) mount.cifs(8)
NAME
mount.cifs - mount using the Common Internet File System (CIFS)
SYNOPSIS
mount.cifs {service} {mount-point} [-o options]
DESCRIPTION
This tool is part of the samba(7) suite.
mount.cifs mounts a Linux CIFS filesystem. It is usually invoked indi-
rectly by the mount(8) command when using the "-t cifs" option. This
command only works in Linux, and the kernel must support the cifs
filesystem. The CIFS protocol is the successor to the SMB protocol and
is supported by most Windows servers and many other commercial servers
and Network Attached Storage appliances as well as by the popular Open
Source server Samba.
The mount.cifs utility attaches the UNC name (exported network re-
source) to the local directory mount-point. It is possible to set the
mode for mount.cifs to setuid root to allow non-root users to mount
shares to directories for which they have write permission.
Options to mount.cifs are specified as a comma-separated list of
key=value pairs. It is possible to send options other than those listed
here, assuming that cifs filesystem supports them. Unrecognized cifs
mount options passed to the cifs vfs kernel code will be logged to the
kernel log.
mount.cifs causes the cifs vfs to launch a thread named cifsd. After
mounting it keeps running until the mounted resource is unmounted (usu-
ally via the umount utility).
OPTIONS
user=arg
specifies the username to connect as. If this is not given, then
the environment variable USER is used. This option can also take
the form "user%password" or "user/workgroup" or "user/work-
group%password" to allow the password and workgroup to be speci-
fied as part of the username.
Note
The cifs vfs accepts the parameter user=, or for users familiar
with smbfs it accepts the longer form of the parameter user-
name=. Similarly the longer smbfs style parameter names may be
accepted as synonyms for the shorter cifs parameters pass=,dom=
and cred=.
password=arg
specifies the CIFS password. If this option is not given then
the environment variable PASSWD is used. If the password is not
specified directly or indirectly via an argument to mount
mount.cifs will prompt for a password, unless the guest option
is specified.
Note that a password which contains the delimiter character
(i.e. a comma ',') will fail to be parsed correctly on the com-
mand line. However, the same password defined in the PASSWD en-
vironment variable or via a credentials file (see below) will be
read correctly.
credentials=filename
specifies a file that contains a username and/or password. The
format of the file is:
username=value
password=value
This is preferred over having passwords in plaintext in a shared
file, such as /etc/fstab. Be sure to protect any credentials
file properly.
uid=arg
sets the uid that will own all files on the mounted filesystem.
It may be specified as either a username or a numeric uid. This
parameter is ignored when the target server supports the CIFS
Unix extensions.
gid=arg
sets the gid that will own all files on the mounted filesystem.
It may be specified as either a groupname or a numeric gid. This
parameter is ignored when the target server supports the CIFS
Unix extensions.
port=arg
sets the port number on the server to attempt to contact to ne-
gotiate CIFS support. If the CIFS server is not listening on
this port or if it is not specified, the default ports will be
tried i.e. port 445 is tried and if no response then port 139 is
tried.
file_mode=arg
If the server does not support the CIFS Unix extensions this
overrides the default file mode.
dir_mode=arg
If the server does not support the CIFS Unix extensions this
overrides the default mode for directories.
ip=arg sets the destination host or IP address.
domain=arg
sets the domain (workgroup) of the user
guest don't prompt for a password
iocharset
Charset used to convert local path names to and from Unicode.
Unicode is used by default for network path names if the server
supports it. If iocharset is not specified then the nls_default
specified during the local client kernel build will be used. If
server does not support Unicode, this parameter is unused.
ro mount read-only
rw mount read-write
rsize default network read size
wsize default network write size
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The variable USER may contain the username of the person to be used to
authenticate to the server. The variable can be used to set both user-
name and password by using the format username%password.
The variable PASSWD may contain the password of the person using the
client.
The variable PASSWD_FILE may contain the pathname of a file to read the
password from. A single line of input is read and used as the password.
NOTES
This command may be used only by root, unless installed setuid, in
which case the noeexec and nosuid mount flags are enabled.
CONFIGURATION
The primary mechanism for making configuration changes and for reading
debug information for the cifs vfs is via the Linux /proc filesystem.
In the directory /proc/fs/cifs are various configuration files and
pseudo files which can display debug information. For more information
see the kernel file fs/cifs/README.
BUGS
Passwords and other options containing , can not be handled. For pass-
words an alternative way of passing them is in a credentials file or in
the PASSWD environment.
The credentials file does not handle usernames or passwords with lead-
ing space.
Note that the typical response to a bug report is a suggestion to try
the latest version first. So please try doing that first, and always
include which versions you use of relevant software when reporting bugs
(minimum: mount.cifs (try mount.cifs -V), kernel (see /proc/version)
and server type you are trying to contact.
VERSION
This man page is correct for version 1.0.6 of the cifs vfs filesystem
(roughly Linux kernel 2.6.6).
SEE ALSO
Documentation/filesystems/cifs.txt and fs/cifs/README in the linux ker-
nel source tree may contain additional options and information.
AUTHOR
Steve French
The syntax and manpage were loosely based on that of smbmount. It was
converted to Docbook/XML by Jelmer Vernooij.
The maintainer of the Linux cifs vfs and the userspace tool mount.cifs
is Steve French. The Linux CIFS Mailing list is the preferred place to
ask questions regarding these programs.
mount.cifs(8)
Mac OS X 10.4 - Generated Fri Apr 29 08:12:24 CDT 2005