Ubuntu – How to mount a samba share at login

I've been through exactly this same issue this morning with 12.04 and here's how I got it working:

Install cifs-utils (even if you already have Samba and related packages installed):

sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

Edit /etc/fstab and add your entry:

//server/share /pathto/mountpoint cifs credentials=/home/username/.smbcredentials,uid=shareuser,gid=sharegroup 0 0

Create the .smbcredentials file in your home directory:

username=shareuser
password=sharepassword
domain=domain_or_workgroupname

Make sure you secure your ~/.smbcredentials file:

chmod 0600 ~/.smbcredentials

Finally, test the mount with:

sudo mount -a

...and you should be good to go!

Okay, I managed to solve this on my own (with the help of others). The underlying problem was, as I suspected, the fact that I was trying to run a command that required root privileges without supplying a password. I solved this problem by following the instructions in the thread "How do I sudo a command in a script without being asked for a password". The long and short of it is, I created a shell script called "script-mount-samba-share.sh" that contains nothing other than a single line with the mount command that I want to run:

mount -t cifs //centaroo.local/Me /media/Me -o uid=scott,gid=scott,credentials=/home/scott/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,sec=ntlm,file_mode=0600,dir_mode=0700

Then, I changed the file's ownership to root:root and changed its permissions to 700. Next, I set up sudo to allow running that script without entering a password, and then I changed the "Command" field in Startup Applications Preferences > Edit Startup Program to "sudo /home/scott/script-mount-samba-share.sh" (without the quotes), and voila. Next time I rebooted and logged in with my user, the Samba share mounted without my lifting a finger. I also tested that when I reboot and log in with a different user, the Samba share does not get mounted, which is what I want.

The only minor catch that I'm now trying to overcome is, when I'm already logged in and then switch users to someone else, my Samba share still shows up in the left hand nav bar in Nautilus, which makes sense as it was mounted when I logged in with my own user, but I don't want the mounted share to display in Nautilus for the other user, so my next task is to figure out how to make that part happen.