How to Mount SMB Shares¶

This guide shows you how to mount SMB/CIFS network shares on Linux with proper permissions. 🚀

🚀 Method 1: Basic Mount¶

📁 Create a mount point¶

sudo mkdir /mnt/myshare

sudo mount -t cifs //server-ip/share /mnt/myshare -o username=youruser,password=yourpass,uid=1000,gid=1000,file_mode=0664,dir_mode=0775

✅ Test it works¶

touch /mnt/myshare/test.txt
mkdir /mnt/myshare/testfolder

⚡ Method 2: Permanent Mount (fstab)¶

📝 Add to fstab for automatic mounting¶

sudo nano /etc/fstab

➕ Add this line¶

//server-ip/share /mnt/myshare cifs username=youruser,password=yourpass,uid=1000,gid=1000,file_mode=0664,dir_mode=0775,_netdev,x-systemd.device-timeout=30,noauto,x-systemd.automount 0 0

🔄 Mount all fstab entries¶

sudo mount -a

🔐 Method 3: Secure Credentials¶

📄 Create credentials file¶

sudo nano /etc/cifs-credentials

username=youruser
password=yourpass

🛡️ Secure the file¶

sudo chmod 600 /etc/cifs-credentials

🎯 Use it in fstab¶

//server-ip/share /mnt/myshare cifs credentials=/etc/cifs-credentials,uid=1000,gid=1000,file_mode=0664,dir_mode=0775 0 0

🛠️ Common Options¶

file_mode=0664 - Files are readable/writable 📄
dir_mode=0775 - Folders are accessible 📂
uid=1000 - Your user ID (check with id -u) 👤
gid=1000 - Your group ID (check with id -g) 👥
vers=3.0 - SMB version (try 2.0 if 3.0 fails) 🔢

🎯 Important for File Managers¶

When using Thunar or other file managers, navigate to your mount point (like /home/user/mount) instead of using smb:// URLs. This ensures applications can properly open files from the network share.

✅ Use: /home/user/mount/file.txt
❌ Avoid: smb://server/share/file.txt

🔌 Unmount¶

sudo umount /mnt/myshare