How to access Windows file server from linux

[manjeet_x]

Hi.. I am new to linux and know some basics, no proper knowledge of servers. I want to know is that how can i access my companies "fileserver" from linux (gui as well as from cmd line). This file server i can access easily from windows machine but i don't know how to open/access file server from linux machine.... please help.... If can tell what tools are needed and also but is the process from command line.
File server is windows server and my machines is Redhat linux.......

[Irithori]

hi,

Personally I prefer to mount shares via autofs.
To do this, you need the autofs package and the userland tools including mount.cifs.
On a redhat 5, it is part of the package "samba-client", on fedora it would be "cifs-utils"

In /etc/auto.master

/mnt/cifs /etc/auto.cifs

And then in /etc/auto.cifs

<LOCAL_CIFS_DIRECTORY>	-fstype=cifs,credentials=<PATH_TO_YOUR_CREDENTIALS_FILE>,uid=<YOUR_UID>,gid=<YOUR_GID>,file_mode=0660,dir_mode=0770	://<CIFS_SERVER>/<CIFS>/

You can of course also put the mount parameters in /etc/fstab, but I prefer to only have the cifs mounted, if I really need them.

Yet another way would be to mount it manually.

[manjeet_x]

Thanks for your reply, but i am unable to understand what is it. Do know any other way to do this process. It is too confusing for me, sorry for that but if you can tell me other method or parameters then it will be greatfull

[Irithori]

As a first approach, try this as root:

yum install samba-client
mkdir -p /mnt/cifs/myshare
mount -t cifs -o workgroup=<DOMAIN>,username=<YOUR_AD_USER> <IP_OF_WINDOWSSERVER>/<CIFS_NAME>  /mnt/cifs/myshare/

You need to replace these placeholders to reflect your environment:
- <DOMAIN>
- <YOUR_AD_USER>
- <IP_OF_WINDOWSSERVER>
- <CIFS_NAME>