SMBFS & CIFS support in SuSe 9.1 kernel

[eflashj]

I just installed SuSe 9.1. Everything works pretty well, but I have discovered that support for the VFAT, NTFS SMB & CIFS file systems is not built into the kernel either directly or as modules. I really need that functionality in order to do online backups of Windoze machines on the networks I maintain. I'm pretty sure there should be a way to make and install the correct modules. Alas, I must confess, I'm no kernel guru. Anyone want to help me out?

[happybunny]

ummm....why do you need support for filesystems running on remote machines?

You should be able to simply mount those remote shares locally via samba or NFS (not sure about CIF's if you mean Novell shares) and backup till your hearts content.

I know its late so I might be wrong, but it doesn't matter what file system is on the remote machine.

[eflashj]

It matters. When I try to mount the remote file system, (i.e. mount -t smbfs -o username=someuser,password=password //remotepc/share /mnt/local)
the returned error is that the smbfs file system is not supported by the kernel. Same thing with vfat, ntfs, & cifs. CIFS, by the way, is the newer version of smbfs. Works better they say. I don't care as long as I can mount it.

[happybunny]

right, sorry.

SMB is needed, but it is not a filesystem like vfat or ntfs.

All you need for your sitution above is the smb client found here
http://www.samba.org/
A brief read of that page says the new version supports CIFS, too, but i didn't read it to closely.

I am not familier with SUSE 9.1 updates, but you might be able to download it with YAST.

As far as vfat or ntfs, that would be needed if you had additional harddrive physically in the same machine as your SUSE box pre-formatted with fat or ntfs, but going across the network, the filesystem is not important.

Hope this helps

[mdwatts]

SuSE 9.1 includes ntfs and vfat support by default.

/lib/modules/2.6.4-54.5-smp/kernel/fs/vfat/vfat.ko

/lib/modules/2.6.4-54.5-smp/kernel/fs/ntfs/ntfs.ko