View source for Accessing Network Shares

[[Category: RaspberryPi]]
Network shares some in two main forms. NFS[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System] and CIFS[www.samba.org/cifs/].

== AutoFS ==
AutoFS is a simple means of mounting an external network share automatically when its required.

This method means that hard mounting in the ''fstab'' can be avoided such that if a share is not availalble at boot no errors are thrown.

=== Installing autoFS ===
<pre>
sudo apt-get install autofs
</pre>

=== Configure autoFS ===
Installation will create a configuration file <code> /etc/auto.master</code>. Edit this file and add a link to a seperate file.
<pre>
sudo nano /etc/auto.master
</pre>

add the following at the end of the file.
<pre>
/media/nfsshares /etc/auto.<fileservername> --ghost
</pre>

where ''<fileservername>'' is then name of your fileshare server. make sure there's a return at the end of the line.

Create /etc/auto.<fileservername>
<pre>
sudo nano /etc/auto.<fileservername>
</pre>

add the local share folder name and the remote server address and location in the form

<code> <localfolder> <server address>:/<server folder> </code>

if you have numerous shares in the same tree, you can add something like this
<code>*	192.168.0.8:/myshareroot/&</code>

=== Test autoFS ===
first we need to restart the service

<pre>
sudo service autofs restart
</pre>

You should see
<pre>
Stopping automount: done.
Starting automount: done.
</pre>

Navigate to the local share location, for example <code> cd /media/nfsshares/music </code>

List the contents of the directory to check its mounted, a brief delay as the folder is mounted may be expected depending on you network configuration.
<pre>
cd /media/nfsshares/music
ls
</pre>

You should see a list of all the remote files. 

If you get errors like 'directory not found', check your auto.master config.

== Raspbian / Raspbmc ==

=== Problem ===

After installation and setup autofs doesn't work and access to an NFS directory results in
<pre>
No such file or directory
</pre>

this can be fixed by starting <code>rpcbind </code>. To start <code>rpcbind </code> manually.
<pre>
sudo service rpcbind start
[sudo] password for jack: 
[ ok ] Starting rpcbind daemon....
</pre>

The preferred methid is to run <code>rpcbind </code> at startup.

<pre>
sudo update-rc.d rpcbind defaults
sudo update-rc.d rpcbind enable
</pre>

Re-boot the RPi and test.