Q. How do I mount CIFS Windows Server / XP / Vista Shared folder under Linux operating systems?

A. Common Internet File System is an application-level network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. You can easily access CIFS share from Linux and mount them as a regular filesystem.

Mount Linux CIFS share

Mount CIFS with the default local filesystem permissions:
# mkdir /mnt/cifs
# mount -t cifs //server-name/share-name /mnt/cifs -o username=shareuser,password=sharepassword,domain=nixcraft
# mount -t cifs //192.168.101.100/sales /mnt/cifs -o username=shareuser,password=sharepassword,domain=nixcraft

OR
# mount.cifs //192.168.101.100/sales /mnt/cifs -o username=shareuser,password=sharepassword,domain=nixcraft
Where,

  • username=shareuser : specifies the CIFS user name.
  • password=sharepassword : specifies the CIFS password. If this option is not given then the environment variable PASSWD is used. If the password is not specified directly or indirectly via an argument to mount, mount will prompt for a password, unless the guest option is specified.
  • domain=nixcraft : sets the domain (workgroup) of the user