Mount cifs share anonymously

Question

I have a Windows 2003 Server sharing out a few folders as read-only to "Everyone". The server is a domain member, so I'm not able to connect to the share on computers that aren't on the domain without passing some form of credentials.

I have a linux box that I want to mount the share on at startup, so I want to put the share mountpoint in fstab. I have this setup by specifying a credentials file that is only readable by root, but I would rather either not use a credentials file or specify some guest/anonymous user. Can I do that, & if so, how?

Is there some reason why you can't just create an account on the server for this computer? It seems like it would be better to just create an account and put it in the "Domain Guests' instead of enabling the guest account. — Zoredache, Mar 02 '11 at 17:30

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 02 '11 at 15:33

3

Enable the guest account on the Win server, give it a trivial (or good, whatever you want) password. Use the guest account from the Linux boxen.

answered Mar 02 '11 at 15:33

Chris S

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What about using Guest with no password? Is that do-able? – churnd Mar 02 '11 at 17:00
I believe that works; though I'd avoid it if possible. – Chris S Mar 02 '11 at 18:07
Yeah, for obvious reasons, but what exactly does "Guest" have access to other than the share? – churnd Mar 02 '11 at 19:00
"Guest" doesn't have access to anything by default. However, many things have access granted to "Authenticated Users", which Guest will now be. – Chris S Mar 02 '11 at 19:15

Mount cifs share anonymously

1 Answers1