Re: Using Files Without Mounting A Share From Another System
On Apr 23, 2011, at 11:46 AM, Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:
> On 04/23/2011 12:04 PM, Hal Vaughan wrote:
>> I don't have to use SMB, I could have the server use NFS as well, but I can't find anything about reading an NFS share unless it's mounted. As best I can tell, unless you use a program like smbclient, scp, ftp, or rsync, there is no way to read any network share in Linux unless it's mounted. To make a program on a non-local volume available locally, you can either copy it to the local computer or mount the share. At least that's the best I can find out. It's kind of tough to Google this, since searches always turn up tutorials on how to mount a volume.
>
> I don't know how SMB work internally, but I wouldn't be surprised if mounting were just a convenience to ease access to files on the remote computer and to store credentials, but internally each access to a file in under a cifs-mounted path is exactly the same as an access via smbclient or other "mount-less" programs.
>
> Anyway, what's the problem with mounting?
I have several reasons for mounting that I'd rather not get into. The short version is that I'm self employed and if a client has had incompetent techs fsck up their LAN in the past and is scared of anything that looks at all different on their LAN, but they also want to pay me $500 - $1,500 a month, it's in my best interest to let them write me that monthly check. (Yes, I've tried educating them, but fear is a strong motivator against learning something that is different from what you are sure is true.) There are a couple other reasons, but that one is enough right there.
> There is only one way to access files that all programs support: the filesystem. So I think it is not possible to find a general solution to your problem. Particular programs might have extra support, so it is possible to include SMB in some program and then it will not have to mount the remote directory. But that is specific to some program.
Unfortunately, I think you're right, but there are a lot of very knowledgeable people on this list, so I was hoping there might be something obscure someone knew about that I could use.
This is a cross platform issue, since the executable has to work on Windows, OS X, and Linux. On Windows I can access the SMB share with no difficulty. I'm considering, for Linux and OS X, the idea of just using ssh with X forwarding and running the program on the server and displaying it on the client, but since the server only has 500 MB and 500 Mhz, I'd rather not use any resources on it that I don't have to.
I'm also looking into creating a temporary mount point and deleting when it's done, but if there's a crash or something, that temporary mount point would remain, unless I put it in /tmp or something radical like that.
Hal
Reply to: