bos.cifs_fs installation fails due to requisite

[wahlda]

Dear Forum,

Thanks for having a look to this thread.

I'm running AIX 5.2 (ML 5200-80) on a pSeries machine.
In order to mount windows shares I'm trying to install the bos.cifs_fs package from the AIX CDs.

When I try to install the package with SMIT, I get the requsite error due to missing
bos.cifs_fs.rte 5.2.0.10 Fileset update.

How do I get the missing fileset update (which obviously is not on the CDs)?
I also tried to download the fileset bos.cifs_fs.rte.5.2.0.10 (and higher levels) from IBM Fix Central to install all filesets from disk, but it doesn't seem to see bos.cifs_fs.rte.5.2.0.10 being present.

Any help is kindly appreciated!
Kind regards
Daniel

 

[DJGas]

Hi,

I've tried to get the "bos.cifs_fs.rte.5.2.0.10" from IBM fix central, ang it works well.

At the fourth choice, take "specific fixes", then in the search field (right one), in the following page enter the full name of the fileset you're looking at .

After that add it to your basket, and following the instructions, download it!

Regards,

DJG.

 

[wahlda]

Many thanks DJG!

I missed to specify "specific fixes".
It seems to accept the base level and fileset update now (- but fails on other requisites).
I'm donwloading all required files now, but I'm confident it will work this time.

Many thanks again.
Daniel

 

[wahlda]

More problems ...

I managed to get all needed filesets to install bos.cifs_fs.

But I'm having more hurdles:
I'm running AIX 5.2 with the 64bit Kernel.
Installing cifs_fs generates the following error:
Method error (/etc/methods/cfgnsmb):
0514-038 Error loading kernel extension.

instal: Failed while executing the
bos.cifs_fs.rte.config script.


0503-464 installp: The installation has FAILED for
the "root" part
of the following filesets:
bos.cifs_fs.rte 5.2.0.0

"Asking" Google about known problems gives me only view hits - some of them state that cifs_fs is incompatible with 64bit Kernel.

Can someone give me a hint into the right direction?
Has someome cifs running in AIX 5.3 (64bit) ?
Any alternatives to cifs to mount Win shares?

Many thanks in advance!
Daniel

PS: Changing back to 32bit Kernel is not really an option due to very CPU intensive processing.

 

[DJGas]

HI,

What about SAMBA?
Free, and quite easy to set up.

Regards

 

[khalidaaa]

DJGas,

our fellow is trying to share Windows shares to an aix! As far as we use SAMBA for in our company is to share aix to windows!

so does SAMBA share windows to aix as well? Just curious!

Regards,
Khalid

 

[bambock]

Hey,

I would say you wouldn't install SAMBA services on a Windows host to share file systems, but maybe I am misunderstanding the question. I checked samba.org and didn't see a distribution for Win32 nor does the Cygwin project have a port for it.

But, SAMBA certainly provides the functionality for accessing Windows resources through the SMB client. The link below describes that smbclient utility and how it can be utilized to access Windows shares.

http://us4.samba.org/samba/docs/using_samba/ch05.html

I know this isn't a Linux forum but if the functionality is available within the kernel you can specify "mount -t smbfs ..." to mount remote Windows or SAMBA shared file systems over the network. In the same manner, I think this is where the cifs functionality is going, but haven't had the opportunity to test it out yet.

Ethan

 

[khalidaaa]

Thanks bambock for the nice link

 

[wahlda]

good morning,

first of all, many thanks for all your contributions and willing to help me in this issue! second I wanted to give you - and others googling for help - some feedback on our progress.

Samba:
We utilize Samba on our AIX box to provide file shares to the windows world - this works very nicely. Under Linux, Samba comes with the tool smbmount which can be used to mount smb based shares into the linux file system (if the Linux kernel has smbfs support) - exactly what I would like to do. But smbmount is not distributed for AIX since not supported.

bos.cifs:
The installation of the bos.cifs package under AIX provides the tools and kernel extensions to mount cifs based shares (incl Windows). For some reason the bos.cifs package is incompatibe with the AIX 5.2 64bit kernel. That's why I get the above error during installation.
I don't know why there is still no fix from IBM for that - at least I didn't find any.

alternatives:
Since downgrading to the 32bit kernel is not an alternative for us, we were forces to look into other directions -> NFS. Network file system mounting is supported by AIX out of the box - but not by Windows...
A colleague gave me the hint to look into the Windows Services for Unix toolkit from Microsoft. It provides several tools to interact with Unix hosts - including a NFS server.
It can be downloaded for free from

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/unix/sfu/default.mspx

Since we also get nice support from our IT, who are willing to install the tools on their Windows file servers, we arecurrently looking into this.
I will give a short update later on the success.

Kind regards - and many thanks again
Daniel

 

[dawaves]

I run AIX 5.3 with CIFS sharing enabled to connect to our Windows Shares. We also utilize SAMBA for our Windows users to access our Unix Server.

CIFS works great under 5.3.

Are you sure you're getting the latest PTF's on IBM's Website:

http://www-912.ibm.com/eserver/support/fixes/fixcentral/psearch

Also check out their APAR section for CIFS errors:

http://www-912.ibm.com/eserver/support/fixes/fixcentral/psearch

Can you please post the results for 'lslpp -L bos.cifs_fs.rte'

Thanks!