[Bio-Linux] BioLinux 8.0 cannot connect to windows file server

[Tim Booth]

Hi Hans-Werner,

Firstly, please ensure the packages gvfs-backends and cifs-utils are
both installed on the machine.

Secondly, the fact that Bio-Linux 8 is running as a server implies you
are connecting in to it remotely, I guess?  Via x2go or via "ssh -X",
maybe?  Depending how you log on, you may not have a valid DBUS session,
which is a thing that the "Connect to server" feature needs.  In any
case, try running this command in a terminal:

dbus-launch nautilus &

Then use "connect to server" in this window.  Does that work?

Alternatively if your fileserver isn't going anywhere you can just
connect it permanently as a mounted filesystem, using the mount.cifs
program in the cifs-utils package.  This is the old-school way and
avoids DBUS but requires using 'sudo'.  I'll not go into the details of
that but see the mount.cifs and fstab manpages for guidance.

Cheers,

TIM

On Wed, 2014-11-26 at 15:15 +0000, Hans-Werner Herrmann wrote:
> I am running a server with BioLinux 8.0 and am trying to access our
> Windows file server through "Connect to server..." every time I enter
> smb://  I get a message saying "This file server type is not recognized"
> and the Connect botton is grayed out. Can you help with this?
> 

-- 
Tim Booth <tbooth at ceh.ac.uk>
NERC Environmental Bioinformatics Centre 

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Maclean Bldg, Benson Lane
Crowmarsh Gifford
Wallingford, England
OX10 8BB 

http://nebc.nerc.ac.uk
+44 1491 69 2705