Working in an environment where a majority of the computers are running Windows when you’re using Linux is exciting and a bit frustrating at times. Recently, one of our computers (running Windows 8) at work was used as a make-shift file server so that everyone can connect and check the files there.

It came as a pleasant surprise that connecting to the shared folder on our Windows Machine was pretty straightforward.

Requirements

On the WINDOWS host/server

1. The IP address of the Windows server/host (you can check this using ipconfig in the command propmt or in the Network and Connection Settings)

2. The name of the shared folder

3. The shared folder must be accessible by everyone

On your Linux (Xubuntu 16.04) machine

1. cifs-utils

    sudo apt install cifs-utils
   

2. A directory to mount the share folder

    sudo mkdir /media/windows-share
   

Variables

windows_ip - the IP address of the Windows host/server

sharename - the name of the Shared folder

mount_point - the path where the shared folder will be mounted

How-to

1. Open /etc/fstab.

    sudo nano /etc/fstab
   

2. Add the following lines and save.

    //windows_ip/sharename  mount_point   cifs  guest,uid=1000,iocharset=utf8   0   0
   

3. Reset /etc/fstab.

    sudo mount -a
   

The Windows share folder should now be mounted and you can access the files on your Linux machine.

For more information, you can check here.