Mounting a network drive

corblimey

I'm trying to access my Iomega Network Hard Drive through Samba to no avail. This has been annoying me all day, I've searched long and hard and read thru threads like http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=964564&page=9 all to no avail. This was working in 804, but the closest I've got to getting it working was this morning when the folder quickly flashed up on my desktop and then disappeared. I have no idea what I did.

In Nautilus, typing smb://x.x.x.x/ gives me 0 items. Typing smb://x.x.x.x/public gives me an error: failed to mount windows share. I also get 'No application is registered as handling this file' from time to time. I tried mounting in terminal

sudo mount //x.x.x.x/public /home/user/Shared/ -o user=x,pass=x

and it just reverts to the prompt, but there's no files in home/user/Shared

I've tried mounting in fstab

//x.x.x.x/public/ /home/user/Shared smbfs username=x,password=x,uid=1000

but

sudo mount -a

then just appears to hang. After asking for my sudo password, it goes to the next line and I have to ctrl+c to get out.

Ubuntu appears to see the drive. Typing findsmb:

IP ADDR    Netbios Name   Workgroup
-----------------------------------
x.x.x.x    STORAGE-xxxx   [  WORKGROUP  ]

Any tips or advice would be much appreciated. I only got this drive so I could easily transfer files to my media PC, if I can't access it thru Ubuntu, I'll have to use USB sticks or go back to 804.

ethernet

Have you installed the samba client as well?

Try this in /etc/fstab:

//x.x.x.x/Public /home/user/Shared cifs username=X,password=X,auto,uid=YOUR_USERNAME_ON_LOCAL_MACHINE,gid=users 0 0

Then

mount -a

as root/sudoing

Orion

ethernet wrote: »

Have you installed the samba client as well?

This caught me out before as well - trying to mount an NFS share - everything looked perfect then realised I hadn't installed the nfs-client.

Based on "No application is registered as handling this file" I'd guess this is your problem.

corblimey

Yes, samba has been installed and is the latest version. I tried your fstab change and while mount -a appears to work /home/user/Shared/ is still empty.

ETA: Just as a matter of interest, what is the difference between nfs, samba and cifs?

ethernet

corblimey wrote: »

Yes, samba has been installed and is the latest version. I tried your fstab change and while mount -a appears to work /home/user/Shared/ is still empty.

ETA: Just as a matter of interest, what is the difference between nfs, samba and cifs?

Here's a rough differentiation:

• NFS: the native network file system on Unix-like OSes
• Samba: the common protocol "understood" by Windows, Mac OS, Linux, *BSD
• CIFS: the file system to specify when mounting a samba share (used to be smbfs in the past)

It's odd if you're not even getting an errors from trying to mount it.

Does this work under GNOME for you: Places --> Connect To Server --> Windows Share (fill in details)?

corblimey

Apologies for double post, but it looks like I'm going to have to downgrade to 804 where this worked. Shame really. I did some more testing and trying this evening, and after installing smbfs and smbclient and trying:

smbclient -L x.x.x.x -U%

I get

Receiving SMB: Server stopped responding
session request to x.x.x.x failed (Call returned zero bytes (EOF))
Receiving SMB: Server stopped responding
session request to x failed (Call returned zero bytes (EOF))
Receiving SMB: Server stopped responding
session request to *SMBSERVER failed (Call returned zero bytes (EOF))

I tried a buncha different ip addresses and this is the only one that returned a message like this. So it's like it's seeing it as an SMB server, but can't ping it? Weird.

Grabbing at straws, I disconnected my media pc from this box (it was mapped to the Z drive) and tried everything again. Nothing doing, and now all attempts to sudo mount -a result in the terminal just sitting there, as if it's trying to connect?

corblimey

ethernet wrote: »

Does this work under GNOME for you: Places --> Connect To Server --> Windows Share (fill in details)?

No. Typing in the IP address only gives me:

Cannot display location "smb://x.x.x.x/"
No application is registered as handling this file

Typing in the IP address followed by /public gives me:

Cannot display location "smb://x.x.x.x/public/"
Failed to mount Windows share

This is the same error that I get if I type in the IP address at the top and public in the 'folder'.

ethernet

Are there any settings you can fiddle with on that NAS device? Presumably it has a web interface of some sort.

corblimey

Yeah, there's a full web interface available but I have no clue what to look for or what to do with it when i find it

Since it worked without fiddling in 8.04 before Xmas I think I'll downgrade this weekend and then see how things are lying. Shame, but I don't think there's currently anything exclusive to 810 that I need - my Ubuntu needs are rather basic, internet, email, ftp, and torrents, sin e.

ethernet

It's a pity. At least 8.04 is a long-term support release.

corblimey

Yeah, and I still have the install CD kicking around, so no time lost. But this time I went ahead and created a /home partition. I don't have much installed (I've only had 810 for about a week) and what I do have installed is all pretty standard - am I losing anything by not backing up the /home partition, or is what I might gain from backing up lost by the fact that I'm downgrading, so certain things are not going to be the same anyway?

mwrf

I'm having the EXACT same problem after upgrading from 8.04 to 8.10.
It's an iomega network drive also. So you ain't going mad OP.

I tried everything you have tried to no avail.
I'm going to file a bug after seeing someone else with the same problem.
I haven't seen it on launchpad yet.

ethernet

Perhaps this device is using a non-standard implementation of Samba, possibly with some proprietary add-on(s). Filing a bug is a good idea.

corblimey

There are numerous threads on ubuntuforums of people having the same or similar issues with this drive in 8.10, here, here and here and while some have solved it using methods in this thread, I've had no luck. So I don't know really know if it qualifies as an Ubuntu bug per se.

ETA: I've just downgraded to 8.04 and it's all working fine now. I can connect to... and find it in the network. I've not managed to get fstab to connect to it yet, but that's not really something I need to be honest, as long as I can see it, I'm happy out.