CIFS moutn in /etc/fstab behave randomly

[jerry0000]

Hi,

I have 3 samba shares setup in /etc/fstab, which looks like:

//server/share1 /local/dir1 cifs ro,iocharset=utf8,username=user,password=pass 0 0
//server/share2 /local/dir2 cifs ro,iocharset=utf8,username=user,password=pass 0 0
//server/share3 /local/dir3 cifs ro,iocharset=utf8,username=user,password=pass 0 0

However, I found mount on boot is random. Sometimes, I get one share mounted, sometimes 2 (randomly). Have not get all 3 mounted at the same time yet.

The setting should be all correct, as I can manually mount using "mount -t cifs" to mount all the shares.

After some reading, it seems to be may be /etc/fstab is processed before network is fully up, so I installed "networkmanager" and enabled service delay:

systemctl enable NetworkManager-wait-online.service

However, that did not help, as after I reboot, I still get only 2 (different from last time) of the 3 shares mounted.

Any solution to make sure all 3 shares are consistently mounted at boot?

Thanks,
Jerry

[jerry0000]

I rebooted, run:

systemctl enable NetworkManager-wait-online.service

one more time, and rebooted again. I got all 3 shares mounted the first time. Hope it stay that way.

edit to add:

did not work consistently.

[karog]

Add _netdev to your options (and yes the underscore is part of the option name). This insures the network is up before it tries the mount.

[jerry0000]

I tried _netdev. Still did not work consistently.

Any help to get CIFS mounted consistently? I am using both networkmanager wait-on-line and _netdev in /etc/fstab, and it is still not working.

[jerry0000]

Is there any service need to be enabled at boot up for cifs mount?

I only installed cifs utils. Did not install sambaclient.

[jerry0000]

Additionally, this Pogoplug is being setup mainly as a DLNA server, to serve media from a Promise NAS (the CIFS shares). The Promise NAS (4300N) is a bit (old and) underpowered. I tested the DLNA plugin on the NAS itself, and the performance is poor. It is not even as good as the DLNA server on my ASUS router, thus I am trying to setup the DLNA server on a Pogoplug.

So besides trying to get CIFS shares mounted reliably, I also have to make sure the minidlna server starts after the shares are mounted. Any settings to ensure this?

Thanks,
Jerry

[moonman]

_netdev is ignored by cifs so it has no effect. I suppose what you could do is use netcfg POST_UP= and put your mount commands there. Also use IP instead of computer network name as it takes time to resolve the names unless you are running wins server on the network.

[jerry0000]

user IP is good idea.

Can you detail on netcfg? I am not a linux newbie, however newbie to arch.

Also, can I start minidlna in netcfg as well after mount, to ensure DLNA server have access to the files? Of course, that will require to disable minidlna from systemd.

Also, why
systemctl enable NetworkManager-wait-online.service

would not work either?

[jerry0000]

using IP did not seem to help. I only get 1 share mounted instead of the usual 2 out of 3.

Add:
seems that
systemctl enable NetworkManager-wait-online.service

did harm rather than good. I disabled and removed network manger, and rebooted, got all 3 shares mounted

I will have to test if this is reliable though

[karog]

If that is not reliable, take a look at Cannot automount Samba share from fstab and a solution near the end using noauto,x-systemd.automount options to mount on first use. But also see that there are some hang issues unmounting and links to that.

It appears lots of people have run into this problem for years now and it is surprising it hasn't been dealt with more cleanly.