[Pkg-samba-maint] Bug#456992: smbfs: mount.cifs fails with "mount error: could not find target server. TCP name ... not found"

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Dec 19, 2007 at 05:05:40PM +0000, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > > I'll check and let you know.  But something has clearly changed
> > > between version 3.0.27a-1 and this version, as it did work until now.
> > > And if it is a DNS issue, then how on earth am I meant to specify the
> > > partition to mount.cifs?!

> > Well, are you sure that something in your DNS didn't change since the point
> > when you were using 3.0.27a?  I really don't know of any other way this
> > would've worked for you with the given commandline.

> I've reinstalled 3.0.27a-1, and my /etc/fstab entry works (line broken
> for readability):

> //WGS-SVR-002/Shared\040Documents       /mnt/wggs/shared smbfs
> user,noauto,credentials=/etc/wggs.credentials,uid=jdg,gid=jdg   0   0

> but you are correct: the command line with -t cifs does not work.
> However, with 3.0.27a, the command line:

> mount -t smbfs //WGS-SVR-001/RMStaff /mnt/wggs/rmstaff -o \
> credentials=/etc/wggs.credentials,uid=jdg,gid=jdg

> does work, whereas with 3.0.28-1~lenny1, this same command line gives
> the TCP name not found error.

> So clearly *something* has changed.

Right, as you seem to have figured out based on your other bug report,
what's changed is that mount.smbfs is now a wrapper around mount.cifs.  You
didn't mention in your original report that you were previously using smbfs.
:)

smbfs has a userspace process linked with the standard samba client code
which handles all of the connection setup, so name resolution works just
like smbclient.  cifs, OTOH, uses a stand-alone program that does a straight
gethostbyname() and passes the IP to the kernel for the connection setup.

I do consider this a bug and a regression (having to do either of
hard-coding IPs or using nss_wins is IMHO a hack), but I'm not sure it'll
get fixed anytime soon.

Cheers,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org