Create a desktop alias for an SMB mount on Mac OS X

So to create an alias to an SMB share on your Mac desktop:

First use Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server…

Enter a location such as: smb://server/share

Then use Finder -> Preferences… -> Show: Connected servers

The SMB mount should now be visible on the desktop. Right-click the share on the desktop and choose ‘Make Alias’. Then take connected servers out of your Finder preferences and rename the desktop alias probably as the name of the share.

Mounting Windows SMB share from Debian Wheezy

Configuring an SMB mount from my Linux box to my Windows box. This was helpful.

Basically:

# apt-get install cifs-utils

Then create your credentials file:

# cat > /root/amanda.smbpass  <<EOF
username=jj5
password=SECRET
EOF

Then edit /etc/fstab and add:

//amanda.jj5.net/Users  /media/amanda cifs defaults,noauto,credentials=/root/amanda.smbpass 0 2

Then create /etc/network/if-up.d/mount-amanda like this:

#!/bin/bash
mount /media/amanda

And make sure it’s executable:

# chmod +x /etc/network/if-up.d/mount-amanda

Mounting can also be done from the command-line:

# mount -t cifs -o username=jj5,password=SECRET //amanda.jj5.net/Users /media/amanda

Internet explorer support for file URIs

The URI file://bender-xp/C$/ works in an anchor tag in IE8 to open the \\bender-xp\C$ file share on my network. In this case bender-xp was the name of my local machine but it works for remote file shares too (I tested it to a Samba share on another box).

Unfortunately my version of Firefox (version 9.0.1) doesn’t support this.