ChrisJenkins

Q: macOS Sierra always prompts for credentials for network drives

At home we have several Macs that mount, on login, some SMB network drives from various servers (OS X Server and Synology NAS). The credentials (username and password) for the network drives are stored in the user's keychain by way of the 'remember this password in my keychain' option the very first time the drives was ever mounted. As a result a command like 'mount' command successfully mounts the drives without the user needing to interact with an authentication dialogue. This has been working just fine for the longest time an all the way up through OS X 10.11.6.

 

In Sierra, any attempt to mount a network drive always pops up the authentication dialogue. The password may be prefilled (presumably from the keychain) but the user still has to respond to the dialogue by clicking OK. This is a huge problem for me as it breaks loads of automation scripts that I have that rely on using 'mount' (the problem is not specific to mount however; the same issue occurs if you use something like Finder's 'Connect to Server' command).

 

I've tried deleting all the 'network password' keychain entries so that they get re-creqted (they do) but the problem behaviour still occurs.

 

Anyone know if this is a bug or by design?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Sep 24, 2016 10:34 AM

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Q: macOS Sierra always prompts for credentials for network drives

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  • by sakman74,

    sakman74 sakman74 Oct 2, 2016 6:38 AM in response to bcrsr
    Level 3 (748 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 2, 2016 6:38 AM in response to bcrsr

    i second you on this ....

     

    it is a concern, not just a nuance. because those ppl (like me) who use any NAS to store data which is accessed by apple applictions such as itunes, etc. will have issues frequently.

     

    i noticed that my itunes re-instated the media folder location where my library data is - probably because the NAS was not available (do to this mounting issue) when itunes was opened.

     

    i am really disliking Sierra because of this and i did take an image snapshot of my system with Clonezilla a few days prior to upgrading to Sierra.

     

    if apple does not fix this soon, i'm going back to the image i took (el capitan), where this problem does not exist.

  • by ChrisJenkins,

    ChrisJenkins ChrisJenkins Oct 2, 2016 8:25 AM in response to sakman74
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 2, 2016 8:25 AM in response to sakman74

    I agree. It is far more than just a nuisance. it has forced me to make major modifications to my client setup on 5 Macs and to adopt a (much) less secure mechanism for auto mounting the required network shares on login. This is major step backwards in terms of both usability and security. I cannot imagine what Apple are thinking of here to be honest. Surely this must just be a bug and not some grand  plan to alienate a large section of the Mac community...

  • by sakman74,

    sakman74 sakman74 Oct 2, 2016 11:00 AM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 3 (748 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 2, 2016 11:00 AM in response to ChrisJenkins

    i've decided to revert back to el capitan state and everything is running fine now.

     

    if its one thing i learned over the years that benefits the most is to take advantage of good disk imaging software for situations like this.

  • by i.lewis.au,

    i.lewis.au i.lewis.au Oct 2, 2016 3:41 PM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 2, 2016 3:41 PM in response to ChrisJenkins

    I've noticed this too.  I have 3 Macs (and a few Windows PCs) in the house all running backups to a NAS as a secondary backup option to TimeMachine.  My NAS backup runs (or used to) continuously, whereas TimeMachine is only when an external drive is connected.  This change has for now at least reduced the reliability of the backup arrangements for the Macs (2 of which are now on Sierra).  I know I can buy a Time Capsule and achieve the same thing, but that doesn't help with other non-Mac PCs.  If this isn't fixed, I'll need to remove the access restrictions on the shared folder - this doesn't seem like a step forward in security...

  • by RolandGosebruch,

    RolandGosebruch RolandGosebruch Oct 4, 2016 1:02 AM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 4, 2016 1:02 AM in response to ChrisJenkins

    ChrisJenkins wrote:

     

    2.   SMB shares hosted on a Synology NAS mounted via Finder/Applescript 'mount' do not mount correctly. They *always* mount as '/Volumes/sharename-1' instead of '/Volumes/sharename' and there is a bogus '/Volumes/sharename' mountpoint created but not used (which then has to be cleaned up manually).

     

     

     

    Could you please tell me how to manually clean up the fake mountpoints?

     

    Thanks in advance.

  • by ChrisJenkins,

    ChrisJenkins ChrisJenkins Oct 4, 2016 1:07 AM in response to RolandGosebruch
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 4, 2016 1:07 AM in response to RolandGosebruch

    In my experience so far the bad mountpoints are owned by root. So if you have a bad mount point of /Volumes/SomeShare then you can remove it using the following from a Terminal session:

     

    sudo rmdir /Volumes/SomeShare

     

    FYI, I have updated to the latest Sierra beta (10.12.1 build 16B2338c - beta 3) and I no longer see this particular problem.

  • by RolandGosebruch,

    RolandGosebruch RolandGosebruch Oct 4, 2016 1:20 AM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 4, 2016 1:20 AM in response to ChrisJenkins

    Thaks a lot. I will try tonight.

  • by Thomas-M,

    Thomas-M Thomas-M Oct 4, 2016 1:21 AM in response to i.lewis.au
    Level 1 (72 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Oct 4, 2016 1:21 AM in response to i.lewis.au

    Meaning you aren't having the issue with auto connecting to known shares?

  • by ChrisJenkins,

    ChrisJenkins ChrisJenkins Oct 4, 2016 1:23 AM in response to Thomas-M
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 4, 2016 1:23 AM in response to Thomas-M

    Sadly no. Meaning I am not seeing the issue of bogus mount points being created and shares mounted as Share-1. It still seems to prompt for credentials.

  • by Y3llowL4b,

    Y3llowL4b Y3llowL4b Oct 4, 2016 4:29 AM in response to Thomas-M
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 4, 2016 4:29 AM in response to Thomas-M

    This is exactly the behaviour I see when trying to mount a Synology shared folder after upgrading to Sierra. Interesting is that after returning "not connected", I click in "connect as" and the pop up comes with my credentials filled out. I click "connect" and then it works.

     

    I cannot believe this is a new "feature". Surely it's a bug. Just the old thing of tech companies calling bugs features.

  • by sakman74,

    sakman74 sakman74 Oct 4, 2016 5:04 AM in response to Y3llowL4b
    Level 3 (748 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 4, 2016 5:04 AM in response to Y3llowL4b

    i just got off a chat with Apple support and they said they are aware and working on fixing that.

     

    they informed that i report that via the feedback link http://www.apple.com/feedback/ which i did anyway.

     

    if this 'issue' or behavior were here to stay, i'd expect a lot of Sierra users to have issue with that.

  • by Mike Kormendy,

    Mike Kormendy Mike Kormendy Oct 6, 2016 6:53 AM in response to ChrisJenkins
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2016 6:53 AM in response to ChrisJenkins

    This is very unlike Apple's product methodology.

     

    From a security standpoint, there's no added benefit to the security of the system here since the authentication dialogue fields are already prepopulated and a user simply has to click "Connect" to still gain access.

     

    This is not acceptable for "standard functionality". This removes functionality, adds no benefit and is simply an oversight and it needs to be repaired.

  • by Peter Almere,

    Peter Almere Peter Almere Oct 6, 2016 7:45 AM in response to Thomas-M
    Level 2 (497 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2016 7:45 AM in response to Thomas-M

    Very curious to read this. Especially the reply from the Apple Support Guy..... I am not sure what is going on on your computers but with me it is....

     

    The Opposite!

     

    My Synology afp supported system ALWAYS mounts on it's own initiative. I don't log in; no nothing it just appears and I can open it. (It is the home drive only, this is the drive that is considered to be 'mine' by the Synology system.)

     

    Other drives can be opened easy by just clicking them to open. Also Time Machine has it's own drive and can make back-ups, but TimeMachine has it's own password on my system.

     

    I tried several time to unmount my 'home' drive but when I do so, it pops up after a while and sits on my desktop again. Only by unchecking 'Show Connected servers' in the Finder prefs it will not show.

     

    Thus I am flabbergasted by reading this thread because it is the opposite from what I am experiencing. Or am I getting this wrong???

  • by Mike Kormendy,

    Mike Kormendy Mike Kormendy Oct 6, 2016 2:02 PM in response to Peter Almere
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2016 2:02 PM in response to Peter Almere

    I tried several time to unmount my 'home' drive but when I do so, it pops up after a while and sits on my desktop again. Only by unchecking 'Show Connected servers' in the Finder prefs it will not show.

     

    This sounds like a case of something slightly different, using AFP is traditionally an Apple network share and likely not affected - I'm thinking that synology has installed automount daemons of some sort that are bypassing the Finder mount mechanism and keeps remounting the drive in the background.

     

    In my situation, I am attempting to mount an SMB drive on my work's Macbook Pro -- using ControlPlane for automation based on if I am in the office or at home, or the manual command+K (Connect to Server) in Finder to mount the drive and the authentication window pops up and doesn't immediately/automatically connect.

     

    ControlPlane is not the culprit here either, as this issue still occurs exactly the same on my personal Macbook Pro and my Mac Mini Server at home as well. Neither of them have ControlPlane so it's certainly something with the new OS itself.

  • by sakman74,

    sakman74 sakman74 Oct 6, 2016 4:57 PM in response to Mike Kormendy
    Level 3 (748 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 6, 2016 4:57 PM in response to Mike Kormendy

    i had AFP maps when i upgraded to Sierra and experienced the re-authentication prompt as the others have in this thread.

     

    I am unsure whether Peter had done an upgrade or clean install of Sierra or whether that would matter concerning this problem.

     

    i'd kindly ask that if there is a Sierra update put up in the App Store, that someone just post a comment that it was updated, i reverted back to El Capitan and am avoiding doing an upgrade until Sierra bugs are worked out. that might be a while i suspect.

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