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In Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) Apple has replaced good old SMB support. Now I can't auto connect to my shared (SMB) network drives. Workarounds? Or is this impossible? In OS X Snow Leopard, I could automatically connect my Ubuntu (SMB) shared network drives with auto_smb / auto_master (autofs configuration in /private/etc/). I made three mount points (folders) directly in '/Volumes', I used /Volumes/Data and /Volumes/webroot (both SMB shared).

Unfortunately Lion doesn't connect (automount) my network drives. I have to manually connect to the server (Ubuntu file server) in Finder, then open up Terminal to navigate to the mount points, and then it connects. This is not a workable solution. I've searched (Google/SO) but found no solutions apart from an unsupported hack.

Isn't it possible anymore to automatically connect to an SMB-shared drive during startup?

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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Here's how can automount a network drive

  1. Connect to your network drive (finder > go > connect to server)

  2. Enter the credentials for your login to your network drive and tick the ‘remember in keychain’

  3. Open system settings > users > login items

  4. Drag the icon for your network drive from your desktop to the startup items.

Source: This article

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  • 6
    It works :) However if you don't like having Finder popping up every time you login, you could use Automator instead: apple.stackexchange.com/questions/18522/…
    – wildpeaks
    May 24, 2012 at 15:03
  • You can hide the Finder by selecting the checkbox next to the login item.
    – Arne
    Aug 6, 2013 at 17:43
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    Checking the Hide checkbox next to the Login Items does not hide the Finder… I ended up using the Automator script suggested above and that works.
    – Toland H
    Jan 19, 2014 at 8:31
  • Tested on Yosemite 10.10, works a-ok
    – Artur Bodera
    Nov 13, 2014 at 10:15
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    Second restart - and no one share was connected. Error right by every of them. Kind became Unknown. OS X El Capitan. So it doesn't work at all.
    – Dmitry
    Oct 14, 2015 at 12:05
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sudo bash
mkdir -p /Volumes/Network/Video /Volumes/Network/Audio /Volumes/Network/Public
vi /etc/fstab

Add something like the following (1 mount per line)

192.168.0.200:/video /Volumes/Network/Video url automounted,url==smb://user:[email protected]/video 0 0
192.168.0.200:/music /Volumes/Network/Audio url automounted,url==smb://user:[email protected]/music 0 0
192.168.0.200:/public /Volumes/Network/Public url automounted,url==smb://[email protected]/public 0 0 # there is no password required for this share, just username

run automount -vc

bash-3.2# automount -vc
automount: /net updated
automount: /home updated
automount: /Volumes/Network/Audio mounted
automount: /Volumes/Network/Watch mounted
automount: /Volumes/Network/Video mounted
automount: /Volumes/Network/Public mounted

Get out of the sudo session. Browse in finder to /Volumes/Network - whenever you go there they will now just automount. Just tried this in 10.7.3 and it works fine.

If you get an authentication error like the below, it is likely that the login/password combination entered into /etc/fstab is incorrect. Make sure to rerun automount after correcting the password.

$ sudo automount -vc
automount: /net updated
automount: /home updated
automount: /Volumes/Network/Computing updated
automount: no unmounts
$ sudo ls -l /Volumes/Network/Computing/
ls: : Authentication error

Note that there is no hard requirement that the target mount point be under /Volumes/Network; you can make the target mount point be /foo, and it will be created for you upon demand.

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  • 1
    I find this a preferable solution over using Finder for two reasons: 1) it directly specifies the mounted share name and 2) takes fewer, easily automated, steps to add another share to the mix. For one or two share, Finder is barely acceptable (and only with an additional step to persist the setup) but for dozens of shares using Finder is tedious. OTOH, this solution is more 'unixy', a good thing.
    – pmr
    Jun 17, 2012 at 13:16
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    If you are trying to connect as guest, use the same steps, except that url is: cifs://guest:@192.168.0.200/music
    – Johnny Everson
    Sep 29, 2012 at 4:52
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    Is there a way to store passwords in system's keychain? I don't like to store my passwords inside clear text files.
    – Luca
    Oct 12, 2013 at 13:42
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    Is there a way to specify default permissions for the mounted files? E.g. make the mounts readable by more than one user on a shared Mac.
    – Friedrich 'Fred' Clausen
    Dec 3, 2014 at 3:17
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    It doesn't show shares on the Network in the Finder.
    – Dmitry
    Oct 14, 2015 at 12:02
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Use AppleScript:

In the AppleScript editor enter this:

tell application "Finder"

try

mount volume "cifs://server/share"

end try

end tell

The save the script as an application. Add to your Login StartUp items

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You can auto mount a share by dragging the mounted volume to your "Login Items" in User Accounts. That's how I do it and it's worked since 10.5.

Once caveat re SMB shares, is that with Lion the share will take about 30 seconds to mount at startup... this delay is new since Apple replaced SAMBA with their in-house implementation in Lion.

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  • I am aware of this workaround, however it's not what I need. The disadvantage of this option is that 2 Finder windows open automatically (even if 'hide' option is checked). In 10.6 autofs worked, mounting my Samba network drives correctly to mount points at /Volumes/...
    – cyppher
    Sep 20, 2011 at 13:33
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Answer: Can't do it. (OS X Lion 10.7.2)

I tried dragging mounted volumes into my "Login Items" but it just pops up an authentication error when I re-login. Yes, this used to work OK in Leopard, but after I upgraded to Lion, it stopped working.

Whenever I try to connect to my SMB shares using Finder, it gives me the same error.

I am able to mount SMB shares from the command-line, and they will also show up in Finder, once they're mounted, and Finder works just fine after that. So, as long as I go out to command-line to do the mounting, it's OK, but it won't work from "Login Items" or "Connect to Server"

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