fstab and cifs mounting, possible to store authentication information outside of fstab?

Solution 1:

From the mount.cifs manpage:

credentials=filename
    specifies a file that contains a username and/or password. The format of the file is:

                         username=value
                         password=value
   This is preferred over having passwords in plaintext in a shared file, such as /etc/fstab. Be sure to protect any credentials file properly.

Solution 2:

Use the credentials option such as:

http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/Filesystems/Mounting_smbfs_Shares_Permanently.html

Example from the website:

cd
echo username=mywindowsusername > .smbpasswd
echo password=mywindowspassword >> .smbpasswd
chmod 600 .smbpasswd

Substitute your Windows username and password in the commands. No one else except root would be able to read the contents of this file.

Once that is created, you would modify the line in the /etc/fstab file to look like this:

//servername/sharename /mountdirectory smbfs credentials=/home/myhomedirectory/.smbpasswd 0 0

example from /etc/fstab:

//server/share/   /mnt/localmountpoint   cifs   credentials=/root/.creda

janneb's post and the link to man page show what needs to be present in the credentials file.

Solution 3:

So I'm accumulating both answers

1. Create file, e.g. /root/.cifs

   username=value
   password=value
   domain=value (optional)
   

2. set permission 600 (rw- permission) to protect your credentials

   # chmod 600 /root/.cifs
   

3. pass credentials=/root/.cifs to your command instead of username= and password=

Solution 4:

Could try cifscloak

pip3 install cifscloak

https://github.com/sudoofus/cifscloak