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Samba Usage Information

What is SMB/CIFS?

SMB is sometimes referred to as Windows File Sharing and several other names. We now offer a Samba server that exports /fslhome, /fslgroup, and user compute/ directories through SMB/CIFS. This allows users to access their data on our servers using built-in file managers for different operating systems, such as Windows Explorer. For more information see Wikipedia.

Important Usage Notes

  • You must change your password before using this if you signed up for an account before June 4, 2008 and have not changed your password since then. You can change your password to something temporary and immediately change it back if desired.
  • On-campus access only (or through VPN if available to you).
  • Conversion between DOS/Unix newline characters is NOT automatic (see "Caveats" below).
  • You may not use FSL storage for personal use. We are not a personal or department backup storage solution.

Connection Information

Read the section "Important Usage Notes" before attempting, especially the parts regarding changing your password and the fact that you cannot access our samba server from off-campus. The table below lists information for how to connect with different clients on different operating systems.

Available Share Syntax
fslhome Windows: \\fslcifs.et.byu.edu\fslhome\yourusername
Mac OS X and Linux: smb://yourusername@fslcifs.et.byu.edu/fslhome/yourusername

Below are directions to access this share using different operating systems.

Operating System Program Description
Windows 2000 and later
Windows Explorer
or
Start->Run
 Enter in the location bar:
\\fslcifs.et.byu.edu\fslhome\yourusername

In Explorer, you can map the share to a driver letter such as S:\ by going to Tools->Map Network Drive. You will probably need to choose "Connect using a different user name". For "Folder", type:
\\fslcifs.et.byu.edu\fslhome\yourusername
The above works on Windows XP SP2 but may be slightly different for other versions of Windows
Mac OS X
Finder
 Open up Finder and select the "Go" menu. Choose "Connect to server" and enter in:
smb://yourusername@fslcifs.et.byu.edu/fslhome/yourusername
Linux (Gnome)
Nautilus
or
Places->Connect to server
 In Nautilus (the file manager) press Ctrl+L and type:
smb://yourusername@fslcifs.et.byu.edu/fslhome/yourusername

In the "Connect to Server" dialog, choose "Service Type: Windows Share", "fslcifs.et.byu.edu" for the server and "fslhome" for the share.
Linux (KDE)
Konqueror
 In the location bar, go to:
smb://yourusername@fslcifs.et.byu.edu/fslhome/yourusername

Caveats

  • Files on Windows file systems cannot use the colon ":" character. Because of Samba's Windows roots, files generated on our systems that contain a colon in the filename will look something like JQ34PH~D when viewed over Samba.
  • Samba does not perform DOS/Unix newline character conversion for text files automatically. DOS (and thus Windows) files finish a line with a \r\n (carriage return followed by a line feed). Unix terminates lines with just a \n (newline). This causes problems when transferring files between operating systems and can sometimes lead to unexpected results. A text file generated in Linux may appear to only contain one really long line when viewed in Windows. A text file generated in Windows when viewed in Linux will contain the extra \r characters that may or may not produce unexpected problems. Compilers such as gcc tend to have big problems with files copied from Windows and will complain about syntax. See Wikipedia for more info. In Linux, the dos2unix and unix2dos utilities can convert between the two formats. Example on Linux:
    $ echo -e "this\nis\na\ntest\nfile" > test
$ file test
test: ASCII text
$ unix2dos test
$ file test
test: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
$ dos2unix test
$ file test
test: ASCII text
  • Samba access is only available on-campus.
  • You must change your password if you have not done so since June 4, 2008.

Troubleshooting

Q: The server isn't accepting my password.
A: If you already had an account before June 4, 2008 and haven't changed your password since then, you must change your password in the account management system. It can take up to 20-30 minutes before the password will propagate to the server. If there is still a problem after that time and you are on-campus, please check for alerts posted on the right side of this page and then submit a support ticket. Please mention that you have indeed changed your password as that will be our first question.
Q: I can't access fslcifs.et.byu.edu at all.
A: You must be on-campus to access fslcifs.et.byu.edu. If you are on-campus and can't reach the server, please check for alerts posted on the right side of this page and then submit a support ticket.
Q: Some filenames look like "JQ34PH~D".
A: Please look under the "Caveats" section of this page for problems related to filenames with the colon ":" character.
Q: Text files copied from the Samba server to my Windows computer look like one very long line.
A: Please look under the "Caveats" section of this page for problems related to newline characters.
Q: Text files copied from my Windows computer to the Samba server cause problems with Program XYZ even though the file looks fine.
A: Please look under the "Caveats" section of this page for problems related to newline characters.
Q: Why do I have to change my password to use Samba?
A: SMB uses a different password hashing method (NT password hashes) that is not compatible with the Linux/Unix password hashes used on our systems. Since we do not store plaintext passwords in our database, we only have access to the one-way hashes that were generated when you last set your password. On June 4, we began to also hash passwords in the SMB format when users change their passwords or get an account. If you changed your password or signed up for an account on or after June 4, 2008, our server now has the correct kind of hash for Samba to work.

Notices

  • New offering: Group File Sharing. Visit the FSL Groups page for details.
    Last Updated Thu Jul 10 9:29 AM 2008
  • We have prepared a new Operating System image which is available on a portion of the cluster now, and will be pushed out everywhere by mid-August. Now is the time to make sure your jobs will work with the new image. For more information, see this page
    Last Updated Fri Jun 27 10:18 AM 2008
  • A new test queue has been set up in Marylou4. See our test queue page for more information.
    Last Updated Fri May 25 4:39 PM 2007

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