Mounting a Windows filesystem on AIX

A lot of people don't realise that there are two optional AIX filesets on the Expansion DVD that enable you to mount a CIFS filesystem on AIX:

bos.cifs_fs.rte           Runtime for SMBFS
bos.cifs_fs.smit        SMIT Interface for SMBFS


Once installed you have to reboot your server to activate the kernel extension.


You should now see that the mount command now accepts the "-v cifs" argument, and that smitty mount also has CIFS as a valid choice from the F4 popup.

Example:
# mount -v cifs -n laptop/Andrew/Password /Users /mnt
# df /mnt
Filesystem    512-blocks      Free %Used    Iused %Iused Mounted on
laptop:/Users 1916172280 967849240   50%        0     0% /mnt

# ls -l /mnt
total 5
drwxr-xr-x    1 root     system        16384 Aug 25 08:38 Andrew
drwxr-xr-x    1 root     system        16384 May 27 09:20 Backup
drwxr-xr-x    1 root     system        16384 Aug 30 2013  Default
drwxr-xr-x    1 root     system        16384 Jun 04 09:57 Public
drwxr-xr-x    1 root     system        16384 Jan 29 2014  andre_000
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     system          174 Aug 22 2013  desktop.ini

See the mount manual page for more options.

If you have the "samba-client" fileset installed you can also see what your Windows machines are sharing e.g.

# smbclient -L //laptop -U Andrew
Enter Andrew's password: 
Domain=[LAPTOP] OS=[Windows 8.1 9600] Server=[Windows 8.1 6.3]

        Sharename       Type      Comment
        ---------       ----      -------
        ADMIN$          Disk      Remote Admin
        C$              Disk      Default share
        IPC$            IPC       Remote IPC
        print$          Disk      Printer Drivers
        Users           Disk
Domain=[LAPTOP] OS=[Windows 8.1 9600] Server=[Windows 8.1 6.3]

        Server               Comment
        ---------            -------

        Workgroup            Master
        ---------            -------