SMB Shares With Samba Client on FreeBSD

We need to install Samba to get smbclient(1) .

pkg install samba47

Notes:

• I've not tested net/samba48.

Let's define some environmental variables first.

authfile="$HOME/smbclient-authentication-file.txt"
smb_username='0mp'
smb_password='secret'
max_protocol='SMB2'
workgroup='CORP'
service='\\shareserver\importantfolder'

Also, let's use a variable to refer to the smbclient(1) command invocation with the default set of arguments:

smb_client="smbclient --max-protocol=${max_protocol} --workgroup=${workgroup} ${service}"

First the smb4.conf file has to exist. Otherwise smbclient(1) fails with:

smbclient: Can't load /usr/local/etc/smb4.conf - run testparm to debug it

It is enough to run the following command:

touch /usr/local/etc/smb4.conf

Now let's create a file to store authentication details. The username and the password may also be provided as command line arguments.

touch "${authfile}"
chmod 0600 "${authfile}"
printf 'username = %s\n' "${smb_username}" > "${authfile}"
printf 'password = %s\n' "${smb_password}" > "${authfile}"

Run smbclient(1):

${smb_client}

You should now see a prompt similar to this:

Try "help" to get a list of possible commands.
smb: \>

smbclient(1) behaves similarly to ftp(1) in the sense that it starts an interactive shell session.

It is possible to use smbclient(1) in non-interactive scripts.

Here's an example of downloading a file from the share:

echo get '\Files\file.txt' 'file.txt' | ${smb_client}

Here's an example of saving (uploading) a file to the share:

echo put './file.txt' | ${smb_client}

As of 2020-11-02…

• Support for SMBv2 has been discussed during FreeBSD Office Hours - May 13 2020: The FreeBSD Foundation (starting 16:11)

• Shares compatible with SMB1 can be easily mounted with mount_smbfs(8) on FreeBSD. It is not the case for SMB2 and SMB3 shares.
• This Reddit thread (SMB V2+ client on FreeBSD 11 from 2018-01-12) suggests that it is not possible at all to mount SMB shares, even with software available in ports.
• It is possible to mount SMB2 and SMB3 shares with GNOME Virtual file system (GVfs). See this Reddit comment for more details.

• Actually, there is an interest in bringing in support for SMB3 in the near future. See the notes from the devsummit 2018-10.

• It is suggested to use CIFS, the Common Internet File System. It is not available on FreeBSD, however.

• sysutils/fusefs-smbnetfs
• sysutils/mountsmb2
• FUSE based variant by Google using libsmbclient