DFS (Windows desktop) browsing through the GUI

[geofft]

There's a dfsclient in the samba locker; it's cool, and quite helpful. But, Debathena should be able to mount CIFS directly and show them in a way accessible through the GUI and through the standard UNIX file system, without any effort, via the smbclient package (which is installed by default on Ubuntu and Debian graphical). This would make accessing your WIN.MIT.EDU files on Athena really easy. We should either make some UI for mounting your DFS homedir, or document the process to do it manually.

[geofft]

It's also quite possible that samba has fixed the bug with referrals that necessitates the dfsclient command; if they haven't, we should figure out why not and submit a patch upstream.

In fact, they have; all I need to run is

smbclient -k //win.mit.edu/dfs -D profiles/g/geofft

to get smbclient's ftp-like interface.

[andersk]

I have to ask: has anyone tried Places → Connect to Server… → Windows share?

[jmorzins]

Replying to geofft:

In fact, they have; all I need to run is

smbclient -k //win.mit.edu/dfs -D profiles/g/geofft

to get smbclient's ftp-like interface.

It doesn't work for me when I try it. The error message is interesting, it suggests that samba is failing to lookup the location of "M24DFSROOT1":

$ smbclient --version
Version 3.3.2

$ smbclient -k //win.mit.edu/dfs -D /profiles/j/jmorzins
OS=[Windows Server 2003 3790 Service Pack 2] Server=[Windows Server 2003 5.2]
Connection to M24DFSROOT1 failed (Error NT_STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_NAME)

In contrast, I can connect if I already know the name of my particular file server:

$ smbclient -k //profiler5.mit.edu/homes5\$ -D /j/jmorzins
OS=[Windows Server 2003 R2 3790 Service Pack 2] Server=[Windows Server 2003 R2 5.2]
smb: \j\jmorzins\> 

I'm doing this testing on a virtual machine that is running Ubuntu 9.04 and Debathena-graphical-login (I think).

[jmorzins]

Replying to andersk:

I have to ask: has anyone tried Places → Connect to Server… → Windows share?

I can get it to work if I know my particular server. It saves a bookmark of:
 smb://WIN.MIT.EDU;jmorzins@profiler5.mit.edu/homes5$/j/jmorzins

I haven't gotten it to work for  smb://win.mit.edu/dfs/

[jmorzins]

Replying to andersk:

I have to ask: has anyone tried Places → Connect to Server… → Windows share?

I've tried a cluster debathena machine, and yes, "smbclient -k win.mit.edu/dfs -D ..." works.
However, Places > Connect to Server > Windows share did not work on the cluster machine.
If I tried to connect to win.mit.edu/dfs I got a generic error messsage whose wording I forgot.
If I tried to connect to profiler5.mit.edu/homes5$ I got a specific error message that nautilus does not support the "smb:" protocol.

[jdreed]

Replying to jmorzins:

Replying to andersk:

I have to ask: has anyone tried Places → Connect to Server… → Windows share?

I've tried a cluster debathena machine, and yes, "smbclient -k win.mit.edu/dfs -D ..." works.
However, Places > Connect to Server > Windows share did not work on the cluster machine.
If I tried to connect to win.mit.edu/dfs I got a generic error messsage whose wording I forgot.
If I tried to connect to profiler5.mit.edu/homes5$ I got a specific error message that nautilus does not support the "smb:" protocol.

I too was unable to convince Nautilus to use Kerberos authentication and/or deal with DFS referrals correctly.

As Jacob notes, the command line smbclient now works, which eliminates the need for the dfsclient wrapper, so that's good.

[andersk]

Replying to jmorzins:

If I tried to connect to profiler5.mit.edu/homes5$ I got a specific error message that nautilus does not support the "smb:" protocol.

Make sure libgnomevfs2-extra is installed (though it should be, since it’s a dependency of ubuntu-desktop).

[jdreed]

Now that we've given up on single-sign-on and are sync'ing passwords, this "just works", at least in Natty.

 http://kb.mit.edu/confluence/x/KSNB