Mounting Windows/CIFS Share on Linux Mint

Many a time we need to mount network share folders but for doing so we always need to connect to the server when we restart the system. Through this article we show how to mount the network folder permanently

Step 1: Open up a terminal, and login to root and type sudo apt-get install cifs-utils. We are using the latest version of Linux Mint where these packages are already installed. But if you do not have these packages, this command will help you install them.

Step 2: You need to create a directory where you want to mount the network foder. Here we create mnt/windows directory where we shall mount this folder.

 mkdir /mnt/WINDOWS

Step3: Now we need to set the share to mount on startup. Use the command given below for this:

nano /etc/fstab

Add the following lines

//192.168.5.5/comon / /mnt/windows cifs noserverino,rw,iocharset=utf8,

password=pass@123,username=admin,uid=999 0 0

We modify the command as follows:

 //serverIP/dir /mnt/dir cifs noserverino,ro,iocharset=utf8,password=,username= ,uid 0 0

To find your user id run the following command in one of the user machines.

 id mint

Make sure to fill out the Username/Password as the WINDOWS/CIFS username that would have access to that share. Press ctrl+x , type y and press enter to Save/Quit.

Step3: All we have to do is mount the Share. Type mount -a , if there are no errors the mount shall work perfectly.

Step 4: Let’s check it out. Browse to /mnt/WINDOWS using the following Command:

 cd /mnt/WINDOWS

Step5: Now let’s make a shortcut on our desktop through this command:

 ln -s /mnt/WINDOWS /home/mint/Desktop

Now you can see a Windows share shortcut or “sym link” as it’s called in Linux on the Desktop.