smbnetfs

Make shares available at mountpoint

$ smbnetfs [mountpoint]

smbnetfs [options] mountpoint

mountpoint
    The directory where the SMB/CIFS network view will be mounted. This directory must exist.

-o option[,option...]
    Specifies various mount options, separated by commas. Common options include authentication details and permissions.

username=<user>
    Specifies the username to use for authentication when connecting to SMB/CIFS shares.

password=<pass>
    Specifies the password for the given username. It's generally not recommended to provide passwords directly on the command line for security reasons.

uid=<id>
    Sets the user ID that owns all files and directories in the mounted filesystem. This can be a numeric ID or a username.

gid=<id>
    Sets the group ID that owns all files and directories in the mounted filesystem. This can be a numeric ID or a group name.

file_mode=<mode>
    Sets the octal permissions for all files within the mounted filesystem (e.g., 0777).

dir_mode=<mode>
    Sets the octal permissions for all directories within the mounted filesystem (e.g., 0777).

ip=<ip_address>
    Specifies the IP address of a specific SMB/CIFS server to browse, rather than discovering all servers on the network.

netbios=<netbios_name>
    Specifies the NetBIOS name of a specific SMB/CIFS server to browse.

workgroup=<name>
    Specifies a particular workgroup to browse, limiting discovery to servers within that group.

debug
    Enables verbose debugging output, printing diagnostic messages to the console or system logs.

allow_other
    Allows users other than the mounting user to access the mounted filesystem. This is a standard FUSE option.

ro
    Mounts the filesystem in read-only mode, preventing any write operations.

rw
    Mounts the filesystem in read-write mode. This is the default behavior.

nonempty
    Allows mounting the filesystem over a directory that is not empty. Existing content will be hidden until unmounted. This is a standard FUSE option.

-v
    Verbose output (equivalent to -o debug).

-s
    Operate in single-threaded mode (less common, usually for debugging).

-h
    Display help message and exit.

-V
    Display version information and exit.

smbnetfs is a user-space utility that allows Linux systems to browse and access SMB/CIFS (Server Message Block/Common Internet File System) network shares. It operates as a Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) module, dynamically discovering available workgroups, servers, and shares on the network and presenting them as a unified virtual directory structure at a specified mount point.

Users can navigate this virtual filesystem to explore network resources, and upon accessing a specific share, smbnetfs handles the underlying SMB/CIFS communication to make the remote share appear as a local directory. This command was useful for providing a 'network neighborhood' view before more robust kernel-level CIFS support (like mount.cifs) became prevalent, making it largely obsolete in modern systems.

smbnetfs is considered an obsolete utility on most modern Linux distributions. Its primary limitations include:

• Performance: Being a FUSE-based user-space filesystem, it generally has lower performance compared to kernel-level CIFS implementations (like mount.cifs).
• Discovery Reliability: It relies on older NetBIOS browsing mechanisms for server and share discovery, which can be unreliable or slow in modern network environments, especially those relying heavily on DNS.
• Maintenance: It receives minimal to no active development, making it less robust and potentially less secure than current alternatives.
• Authentication: Authentication might need to be handled per-share or through less secure command-line password passing.

To unmount a filesystem mounted with smbnetfs, you should use the standard umount command, specifying the mount point: umount /path/to/mountpoint.

Providing sensitive information like passwords directly on the command line using the password= option is insecure, as it can be visible in process listings (e.g., via ps). For more secure authentication, consider using credentials files, though smbnetfs's support for such mechanisms is limited compared to mount.cifs.

smbnetfs emerged as part of the smbfs utilities package, providing an early method for Linux users to interact with SMB/CIFS networks through a user-friendly, browsable filesystem interface. It was developed to leverage FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) at a time when kernel-level CIFS support was less mature. Its role was to abstract the complexities of network share discovery and access into a standard filesystem view. However, with the significant advancements and widespread adoption of the kernel-level cifs module and the mount.cifs utility, smbnetfs has been largely superseded due to its performance, reliability, and security limitations, becoming an obsolete tool in most contemporary Linux environments.

mount.cifs(8), smbclient(1), umount(8), fuse(4)