Samba is an Open Source/Free Software suite that provides seamless file services to SMB/CIFS clients. Samba runs on most Unix and Unix-like systems, such as GNU/Linux, Solaris, and the BSD variants, including Apple's Mac OS X. It is standard on virtually all distributions of Linux and is commonly included as a basic system service on other Unix-based systems as well.
The CS department uses CIFS shares to share files to personal desktop machines and laptops for access to home directories, web space, and project space.
You will need to setup your CS CIFS Password in order to use Samba/CIFS. More information about setting up your password can be found here.
Using Samba on Windows
Using Windows Explorer under the Tools menu you can select "Map Network Drive" to have your CS home directory mounted as a drive letter (e.g. H:). You can also access your home directory by clicking on Start | Run, and entering "\\fs.cs.princeton.edu\cshome". (Note that your NetID is not part of the path. It is passed to the file server in the authentication.) If prompted for authentication, you must use your CS username and CIFS Password, as below:
Username: username
Password: [Your CS CIFS Password]
Using Samba on Linux/Unix
Under Linux you can map a Samba drive using 'cifs' (or 'smbfs' on older releases of Linux). Here is an example:
mount -t cifs -o user="username" //fs.cs.princeton.edu/cshome /mnt/username
Using Samba on the Mac
Under Mac OS X, you can access a Samba share using Connect to Server... under Go in the menu bar. To access your home directory, you would use the following format for the Server Address:
smb://fs.cs.princeton.edu/cshome/
(Note that your NetID is not part of the path. It is passed to the file server in the authentication.)