[Pkg-samba-maint] Bug#612757: cifs-utils: mount.cifs not longer usable

schorsch herrmann at glatz.de
Thu Feb 10 12:57:22 UTC 2011


Package: cifs-utils
Version: 2:4.5-2
Severity: grave
Tags: squeeze
Justification: renders package unusable

It is the very nature of a network to be highly dynamic. So a user must be able
to mount network shares dynamically, i. e. mount with different user IDs (on
the target host), mount to different mountpoints (at least beyond his home
directory), mount short dated or short termed shares.

It is the very nature of /etc/fstab, to be highly static. So any mounting tool
used to mount shares from a windows network, which requires static entries in
/etc/fstab, which hence requires root rights, is absolutely useless.

In former versions of smbfs resp. cifs-utils found in Debian a user was able to
dynamically mount windows shares. Since Squeeze, mount.cifs requires static
entries in fstab.

Now the user must not only be given the right, to manipulate /etc/fstab at his
will. It's worse: The Windows password must be entered in clear text into fstab
(or at least in a credentials file), it must be written to a file on harddrive.





-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (700, 'stable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE at euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE at euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages cifs-utils depends on:
ii  libc6                     2.11.2-10      Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libkeyutils1              1.4-1          Linux Key Management Utilities (li
ii  libkrb5-3                 1.8.3+dfsg-4   MIT Kerberos runtime libraries
ii  libtalloc2                2.0.1-1        hierarchical pool based memory all
ii  samba-common              2:3.5.6~dfsg-3 common files used by both the Samb

cifs-utils recommends no packages.

Versions of packages cifs-utils suggests:
ii  smbclient                 2:3.5.6~dfsg-3 command-line SMB/CIFS clients for 

-- no debconf information





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