Can you upgrade cifs-utils in older versions of Mint?

[theratuk]

Hi I am running Mint 18 and my cifs-utils is version 2:6.4, but ideally I need to get 2:6.9 in order to make a drive mount work with the argument "vers=default" (vers=default gives me invalid argument for this version of cifs-utils)

Code: Select all

therat@mint ~ $ apt-cache policy cifs-utils
cifs-utils:
  Installed: 2:6.4-1ubuntu1.1
  Candidate: 2:6.4-1ubuntu1.1
  Version table:
 *** 2:6.4-1ubuntu1.1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2:6.4-1ubuntu1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages

Is there any way I can update it to a more recent version without upgrading to a newer version of Mint? My Mint 20 machine has version 2:6.9 and that words with vers=default; and the drive will mount.

But my Mint 18 won't let me upgrade it further?

[altair4]

Do you not know what dialect of smb the server is using?

The only possible values for vers is 1.0 2.0 2.1 and 3.0 in your version of Mint.

By default the version in Mint18 is fixed at 1.0 so it appears your server requires 2.1 or greater. I would suggest finding out what dialect of smb the server is using or just do a trial and error starting with vers=2.1 then vers=3.0.

Updating cifs-utils is not as easy as it sounds since cifs is Linux kernel based. The version of cifs-utils is linked to the version of the Linux kernel so you can't update one without the other.

[theratuk]

Thanks for this, really appreciate it. Yes, I feared it would be a kernel update job and to be honest I want to avoid that because everything else works beautifully and has done for about five years ha.

You have anticipated my problem with this exactly. I do not know the version.

I have already cycled through various versions of SMB, including the ones you mention... yet none work. And yet on another Mint 20 machine with vers=default it mounts fine

No idea where to go next but I really do not want to update my machine yet if possible... Mint 18 is great and everything is setup. I am also in a work period that is especially inconvenient to do this.

[altair4]

On the Mint20 machine:

[1] Install nmap:

Code: Select all

sudo apt install nmap

[2] Then run this command with the ip address of the server you are trying to connect to:

Code: Select all

nmap --script smb-protocols some-ip-address

You should get a list of the smb dialects the server supports. Something like this:

tester@vmint201cinn:~$ nmap --script smb-protocols 192.168.1.143
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2021-04-22 10:43 EDT
Nmap scan report for gort (192.168.1.143)
Host is up (0.00029s latency).
Not shown: 996 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
5357/tcp open wsdapi

Host script results:
| smb-protocols:
| dialects:
| NT LM 0.12 (SMBv1) [dangerous, but default]
| 2.02
| 2.10
| 3.00
| 3.02
|_ 3.11

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.30 seconds