Why the CIFS?

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Level 1

14 points

Why the CIFS?

I have resources on my network that offer file sharing over both AFP and CIFS. I'd like the Macs on my network to use AFP. One Mac, however, continues to connect to this resource using CIFS, and I cannot figure out why. There are no startup items for the user that have been mapped with CIFS, and I can't find any process that should be trying to use CIFS.

How can I find out what process is using a CIFS connection instead of AFP and, additionally, what process is initiating this connection?

Thanks,

H.

New (Aug 2010) Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 8-core Xeon, 16G ECC RAM, 0+1 RAID

Posted on Jan 9, 2012 1:31 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 9, 2012 1:42 PM in response to hoppah

Hi,

Did you look into System Preferences > Users and Groups if something is setup in Login items ?

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Answer 2

hoppah Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 9, 2012 1:49 PM in response to Yann Bizeul

Yes, sorry if I wasn't clear but that's what I meant by "There are no startup items for the user that have been mapped with CIFS".

H.

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Answer 3

hoppah Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 10, 2012 10:43 AM in response to Yann Bizeul

Found the issue - it was indeed links in the iTunes library database. They were pointing to shares that used CIFS. Which leads me to another question: how can I remove those share names on the Mac so that they don't get re-used? From my NAS the AFP share is "ShareNAS", and the CIFS share of the same resource is "ShareNAS-1". Can I get the "ShareNAS-1" out of the Mac in some way so that future processes that might try to reference it are thwarted?

H.

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Answer 4

Jan 10, 2012 11:25 AM in response to hoppah

It is up to your NAS. I'm not aware of a mechanism on the Mac side that would blacklist or re-route some calls to specific mounts.

You can use "grep"in Terminal on the XML file of theiTunes Library and see if ShareNAS-1 is still referenced but that's all I can think of. You will have to be familiar with unix environment.

If you change the name of the CIFS share tho, future mount attempt will fail, but can lead to unpredictable behaviors (locking, spinning wheel, etc).

Take a look at the NAS configuration, maybe there is a built-in firewall where you can blacklist incoming connection from your Mac IP of CIFS TCP/IP port.

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Answer 5

hoppah Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 10, 2012 1:13 PM in response to Yann Bizeul

The NAS shares the same resource with both protocols. Each device that attaches creates a share name for those resources. The Mac created a share name for the AFP one of "ShareNAS", which matches the offered resource name from the NAS. The Mac then created a share name for the CIFS one called "ShareNAS-1". That is the offending item, and it was in the XML file. I did a search and replace on the XML file and then reimported it into iTunes, which fixed the problem, but I'd like to figure out where in the Mac the share is cached so I can remove it.

I could do some firewall config on the NAS, but I'd prefer to just clear the cached entry out of the Mac.

H.

P.S. I wasn't trying to imply that the Mac had automatically "re-routed" anything, I'm sure the problem came about when someone added something to the iTunes library and chose the wrong server in the list of resources.

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,506 points

Jan 10, 2012 4:21 PM in response to hoppah

Is it in /Volumes?

Sometimes mount points get orphaned. If it is, check that there are no files in it that should have been put on the NAS. The orphaned mount points sometimes continue to collect files like it was the server, but they never actually make it to the NAS. Once verified, you can delete it from /Volumes. You may have to use the command line. Just make sure your NAS isn't connected for real.

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Answer 7

hoppah Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 13, 2012 12:48 AM in response to Barney-15E

Ahh, now we're getting somewhere. Are the names in /Volumes just mount points? If so, how do I ensure they do not remount? Should I be digging for a mnttab file or is there something more Mac-y?

H.

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Answer 8

hoppah Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 13, 2012 11:27 AM in response to Yann Bizeul

Thanks everyone for all the help. Apparently the only way to stop this is to filter access to the NAS via IP.

H.

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