possible to mount a Windows filesystem on a Linux machine ?

Question

I would like to know if it’s technically possible to mount a Windows filesystem on a Linux machine in order to share with samba(if i have a operation recovery problem with my windows cluster systems; Currently couple of LINUX file systems are shared with windows clients using samba). I mean in case of total crash of the windows cluster, the goal for us is to connect(make avilable) the windows data (part of the Clariion disks)

any one having such setup ? Or any thought on this..

dynamox · Accepted Answer

You can mount NTFS file system on Linux box, you will need to re-compile the kernel and enable NTFS support or install it as a loadable module (search freshrpm). It's a pretty safe operation if you only mount it read-only but you will see a bunch of warning about corruption if you mount it read-write. Let's say you do get it mounted read-write ..what's next ? Is your Linux box joined to active directory, how is it going to do the authentication ?&#xa0; How about installing VMware server (free as in beer ) on one of your Linux cluster nodes, install a Windows server VM, join it to active directory and then present windows LUN as 'raw device mapping'.&#xa0; Boot it up, assign drive letter and file system should be available. If you have a lot of shares on your windows cluster, you can write a wmi script to export HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Shares key to a file every so often. If disaster strikes you can use this key to import all the share definitions, restart 'Server' service and as long as directory structure and drive letter is the same you are back in business. Now running in a VM may not provide the same performance you would expect from a windows box but you are in system down situation so degraded performance is expected (depends on your SLAs).&#xa0; If you have SnapView license, try this process with a snapshot or clone of your production LUN. Hopefully this makes sense .

SKT2 · Answer

Linux boxes are doing the authentication using LDAp already. But can this warning about corruption can be ignored?Or the data will be at risk as long as mounted this way?

dynamox · Answer

i don't have personal experience mounting Windows file system read/write on RedHat.  I have done that in Ubuntu on my home machine using ntfs-3g driver and have not had any issues but would i do that on my production file server ? Unlikely

Allen Ward · Answer

I was actually thinking along the same lines as dynamox on this one. While it is possible to mount NTFS on a LINUX box, I've only ever heard of headaches and trouble from people who have "succeeded". I'm no LINUX expert (far from it) but all my attempts to get even read only access to NTFS volumes for LINUX have been painful.

You should seriously consider going the VMWare route. These days it is so easy to get a VM up and running that could mount the volume natively that it will likely take less time and effort to get this set up and it will likely be more reliable and stable than another solution as well.

umichklewis_ac7b91 · Answer

Ditto the prior two comments.  In my own experience, ntfs-3g on Ubuntu and CentOS have been adequate, but hardly stable (well-polished package on Ubuntu, but the CentOS RPM has never installed cleanly for me).  I'd worry that certain disk activity on the Windows side (VSS, Search Indexer, etc.) might lock a file in such a manner than the Linux box may not like.  I've had one or two errors that forced me to unmount all NTFS filesystem completely (including devices not in use) to get back to a steady state, on CentOS.  Since RHEL5 would probably use the same RPM as CentOS, that doesn't sound like a reliable recovery scenario.  Probably good only for a development instance that only a few admins use - irregularly.

CLARiiON

possible to mount a Windows filesystem on a Linux machine ?

Was this post helpful?