The CIFS VFS support for Linux supports many advanced network filesystem
features such as heirarchical dfs like namespace, hardlinks, locking and more.
It was designed to comply with the SNIA CIFS Technical Reference (which supersedes
the 1992 X/Open SMB Standard) as well as to perform best practice practical
interoperability with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Samba and equivalent
servers.
For questions or bug reports please contact sfrench@samba.org (sfrench@us.ibm.com)
Build instructions:
==================
For Linux 2.4:
1a) Get the linux kernel source with cifs vfs already in it
from bitkeeper via bk://cifs.bkbits.net/linux-2.4
or
1b) Get the kernel source (e.g.from http://www.kernel.org)
and download the cifs vfs source (see the project page
at http://us1.samba.org/samba/Linux_CIFS_client.html)
and change directory into the top of the kernel directory
then patch the kernel (e.g. "patch -p1 < cifs_24.patch")
to add the cifs vfs to your kernel configure options if
it has not already been added (e.g. current SuSE and UL
users do not need to do not need that patch since the cifs vfs is
already in the kernel configure menu) and then
mkdir linux/fs/cifs and then copy the current cifs vfs files from
the cifs download to your kernel build directory e.g.
cp <cifs_download_dir>/fs/cifs/* to <kernel_download_dir>/fs/cifs
2) make menuconfig (or make xconfig)
3) select cifs from within the network filesystem choices
4) save and exit
5) make dep
6) make modules (or "make" if CIFS VFS not to be built as a module)
For Linux 2.5:
1) Download the kernel (e.g. from http://www.kernel.org or from bitkeeper
at bk://linux.bkbits.net/linux-2.5) and change directory into the top
of the kernel directory tree (e.g. /usr/src/linux-2.5.73)
2) make menuconfig (or make xconfig)
3) select cifs from within the network filesystem choices
4) save and exit
5) make
Installation instructions:
=========================
If you have built the CIFS vfs as module (successfully) simply
type "make modules_install" (or if you prefer, manually copy the file to
the modules directory e.g. /lib/modules/2.4.10-4GB/kernel/fs/cifs/cifs.o).
If you have built the CIFS vfs into the kernel itself, follow the instructions
for your distribution on how to install a new kernel (usually you
would simply type "make install").
If you do not have the utility mount.cifs (in the Samba 3.0 source tree and on
the CIFS VFS web site) copy it to the same directory in which mount.smbfs and
similar files reside (usually /sbin). Although the helper software is required,
mount.cifs is recommended. Eventually the Samba 3.0 utility program "net"
may also be helpful since it may someday provide easier mount syntax for users used
to Windows e.g.
net use <mount point> <UNC name or cifs URL>
Note that running Winbind on all of your Linux clients is useful in
in mapping Uids and Gids consistently to the proper network user.
Samba Considerations
====================
To get the maximum benefit from the CIFS VFS, we recommend using a server that
supports the SNIA CIFS Unix Extensions standard (e.g. Samba 2.2.5 or later or
Samba 3.0) but the CIFS vfs works fine with a wide variety of CIFS servers.
Note that uid, gid and file permissions will display default values if you do
not have a server that supports the Unix extensions for CIFS (such as Samba 2.2.3 or
later). To enable the Unix CIFS Extensions in the Samba server, add the line:
unix extensions = yes
to your smb.conf file on the server. Note that the following smb.conf settings are
also useful (on the Samba server) when the majority of clients are Unix
or Linux:
case sensitive = yes
delete readonly = yes
Some administrators also change the "map archive" and the "create mask" parameters
from their default values. Creating special devices (mknod) remotely may require
specifying a mkdev function to Samba. For more information on these see the manual
pages ("man smb.conf") on the Samba server system. Note that the cifs vfs, unlike the
smbfs vfs, does not read the smb.conf on the client system (the few optional settings
are passed in on mount via -o parameters instead). Note that Samba 2.2.7 or later
includes a fix that allows the CIFS VFS to delete open files (required for strict
POSIX compliance). Windows Servers already supported this feature.
Use instructions:
================
Once the CIFS VFS support is built into the kernel or installed as a module (cifs.o),
you can use mount syntax like the following to access Samba or Windows servers:
mount -t cifs //9.53.216.11/e$ /mnt -o user=myname,pass=mypassword
after -o the following cifs vfs specific options are supported:
user=<username>
pass=<password>
domain=<domain name>
TCP names (in addition to ip addresses) will be available when the mount helper
(mount.cifs) is complete
Restrictions
============
Servers must support the NTLM SMB dialect (which is the most recent, supported by Samba
and Windows NT, 2000 and XP and many other SMB/CIFS servers) and servers must support
either "pure-TCP" (port 445 TCP/IP CIFS connections) or RFC 1001/1002 support for
"Netbios-Over-TCP/IP." Neither of these is likely to be a problem as most servers
support this. IPv6 support is planned for the future.
CIFS VFS Mount Options
======================
A partial list of the supported mount options follows:
user The user name to use when trying to establish
the CIFS session.
password The user password. If the mount helper is
installed, the user will be prompted for password
if it is not supplied.
ip The ip address of the target server
unc The target server Universal Network Name (export) to
mount.
domain Set the SMB/CIFS workgroup name prepended to the
username during CIFS session establishment
uid If CIFS Unix extensions are not supported by the server
this overrides the default uid for inodes.
gid If CIFS Unix extensions are not supported by the server
this overrides the default gid for inodes.
file_mode If CIFS Unix extensions are not supported by the server
this overrides the default mode for file inodes.
dir_mode If CIFS Unix extensions are not supported by the server
this overrides the default mode for directory inodes.
port attempt to contact the server on this tcp port, before
trying the usual ports (port 445, then 139).
iocharset Codepage 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.
rsize default read size
wsize default write size
rw mount the network share read-write (note that the
server may still consider the share read-only)
ro mount network share read-only
version used to distinguish different versions of the
mount helper utility (not typically needed)
Misc /proc/fs/cifs Flags and Debug Info
=======================================
Informational pseudo-files:
DebugData Displays information about active CIFS sessions
SimultaneousOps Counter which holds maximum number of
simultaneous outstanding SMB/CIFS requests.
Stats Lists summary resource usage information
Configuration pseudo-files:
MultiuserMount If set to one, more than one CIFS session to
the same server ip address can be established
if more than one uid accesses the same mount
point and if the uids user/password mapping
information is available. (default is 0)
PacketSigningEnabled If set to one, cifs packet signing is enabled
and will be used if the server requires
it. If set to two, cifs packet signing is
required even if the server considers packet
signing optional. (default 1)
cifsFYI If set to one, additional debug information is
logged to the system error log. (default 0)
ExtendedSecurity If set to one, SPNEGO session establishment
is allowed which enables more advanced
secure CIFS session establishment (default 0)
NTLMV2Enabled If set to one, more secure password hashes
are used when the server supports them and
when kerberos is not negotiated (default 0)
traceSMB If set to one, debug information is logged to the
system error log with the start of smb requests
and responses (default 0)
LookupCacheEnable If set to one, inode information is kept cached
for one second improving performance of lookups
(default 1)
OplockEnabled If set to one, safe distributed caching enabled.
(default 1)
These experimental features and tracing can be enabled by changing flags in /proc/fs/cifs
(after the cifs module has been installed or built into the kernel, e.g. insmod cifs).
To enable a feature set it to 1 e.g. to enable tracing to the kernel message log
type:
echo 1 > /proc/fs/cifs/cifsFYI
and for more extensive tracing including the start of smb requests and responses
echo 1 > /proc/fs/cifs/traceSMB
Also note that "cat /proc/fs/cifs/DebugData" will display some information about the
active sessions and the shares that are mounted. NTLMv2 enablement and packet
signing will not work since they the implementation is not quite complete. Do not enable
these flags unless you are doing specific testing. Enabling extended security works to
Windows 2000 Workstations and XP but not to Windows 2000 server or Samba since it does not
usually send "raw NTLMSSP" (instead it sends NTLMSSP encapsulated in SPNEGO/GSSAPI, which
support is not complete in the CIFS VFS yet).