Sunday, August 23, 2009

Mount a Windows shared folder in Linux

You made the switch to Linux and at least one Windows computer is still on your network. The old days when Windows and Linux didn't play together are long gone. You can easily set up your Linux computer to have read and write access to the files housed on a nearby Windows computer. If you've used Macs in the past, the process is practically identical.

Set up sharing on your PC
In Windows, choose the folder you want to share, right click on it and choose properties. In the Sharing tab, turn on sharing. Feel free to name your folder anything you want and ignore any warnings Windows gives about the name being longer than 12 characters.

Determine your PC's IP Address
You will need to give your Linux computer a location when trying to access shared folders. This location is your PC's IP address. In the Command Prompt type ipconfig and you will see your IP address (it probably starts with 192). My IP address is shown below as 192.168.1.117

Accessing the shared folder from Linux
There are two very easy ways to access shared folders in Linux. The easiest way (in Gnome) is to press (ALT+F2) to bring up the run dialog and type smb:// followed by the IP address and the folder name. As shown below, I need to type smb://192.168.1.117/Shared. If you have your Windows account passworded, you will need to enter the password to access the shared folder.

Accessing all shared folders from Linux
Linux automatically detects and connects to Windows networks. In Gnome, by going to Places and then Network you will automatically see all the Windows networks. You can then navigate through the Windows networks and connect to the shared folder. This is an easy way to manage your shared folders if you have many Windows networks with shared folders.

Making it easier
By bookmarking your shared folder you can access it from the Gnome menu.

Source

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