Mounting Windows Network Shares in Linux

Too many people use Windows and Linux, so you’re going to have to access Windows network shares in Linux some time or the other. Samba is what Linux uses to host shares and access remote ones. To do this, go to Applications > System Tools > Terminal. Create a location where you want to mount the network share by typing in mkdir/mnt/netshare, where “netshare” can be replaced by the name for the mount.

Then type in

 mount -t cifs//MACHINEIP/SHARENAME/mnt/netshare.

Press [Enter], and you might be asked for a password. The mount -smbfs should work, but in Fedora, you need to use the –cifs parameter instead.

Adding the –o username=myusername,password=mypass set of parameters to the mount command authenticates password-protected shares. This parameter needs to be added between the mount command and the share location. (CIFS is short for Common Internet File System.)

To have this network share auto-mounted on bootup, go to Applications > Accessories > Text Editor. Open /etc/fstab. At the bottom of this text file, make an entry:

//MACHINEIP/SHARENAME/mnt/YOURMOUNTLOCATION cifs password=yourpassword 0 0