CIFS client mount seems OK but "bdf" gives "permission denied"

[Alan Solomon]

This is my first attempt to use the CIFS client. Downloaded the newest CIFS cleint and installed OK. On my XP Pro box I shared a folder and allowed full access to Everyone. On my HP-UX box I was able to do cifslogin OK and cifsmount reported no errors, but even as root when I do "bdf" I get:

bdf: /home/worker_share: Permission denied

I mounted like this:

"cifsmount :/worker_share /home/worker_share"

As root, "ls /home" lists worker_share, but "ll -d /home/worker_share" gives "/home/worker_share not found".

Any help will be appreciated!

[Tim Nelson]

What happens if you bdf or ll as a non-root user ?

[John Guster]

on your HP-UX system do
1. update /etc/opt/cifsclient/cifsclient.cfg to include the IP of your XP Pro box:
XPProbox = {
ipAddress = "1.1.1.1";
};
2. cifsclient stop/start
3. mount again
4. cifslogin XPProbox "Alan Solomon", give the password of your XP Pro box
5. bdf should run

Try out.

[Eric Raeburn]

Alan,

"Permission denied" on a CIFS filesystem is the result when the user issuing the bdf command has not been authenticated by the server. This authentication is accomplished with the cifslogin command. The sequence of steps is:

1. cifsmount (only root can do this)
2. cifslogin (and number of users can do this)

Note that when a user does cifslogin, the username-password pair is that of an account on the server (or the server's domain). The user's login name on the hpux cifs client host is unknown and irrelevant to the server. Note also that root on the client can mount and login in one step by specifying the username and password options to cifsmount (see the cifsmount manpage or enter cifsmount without any options).

Do 'cifslist' to verify the status of cifs mounts and logins. If your login name (whether root or anything else) is not shown as having an active login (a "Remote User" name) on the server, you will not be able to access that server's mounted shares from the cifs client host, whether by bdf, ls, or any other method.

The suggestion to add the server's ip address to the config file won't help in this situation. That is necessary only if no name resolution (DNS, NetBIOS, /etc/hosts, etc.) is available. This could happen if the server's NetBIOS name is different than its DNS name, but cifsmount would have failed outright if this were the case. Should you ever need this, you can always specify the IP address as an option to cifsmount. And if you ever decide to use the config file method, you would not need to restart the cifsclient.

Let us know how you're faring.

-Eric

[Alan Solomon]

Eric -

You are spot-on, thanks! Apparently I had failed to do the cifslogin ... though I *thought* I had done that. It works fine now.