Mageia 6 and SMB shared drives [Closed]

[rodgoslin]

This is a subject that I perhaps raised earlier, in Mga 5, and maybe in Mga 4. I had hoped that it would be resolved in Mga 6, but it seems that I'm faced with the same problem, and perhaps more.
At one time mounting SMB drives was relatively simple, but required a modicum of action outside of the established procedures in the Control Centre. However, it was noted, and I entirely agree, that the mounting details in /etc/fstab, included the access username and password, to the devices to be mounted. The old system was changed to the "Credentials" system, where the password was in a separate file with no read access to the user. All well and good.
There was however, a hiatus in the implementation of this. In a 32 bit machine ( A thinkpad T41), it worked fine. The Control Centre created the appropriate file structure, for username and password. The only sticking point was that the Control Centre located remote servers by name, and fstab required addresses. Editing the /etc/hosts file resolved this without problems. In a 64 bit desktop machine, things were different. For a start, in the Control Centre, there was no option to add a password for the to be mounted drives, and the fstab entry produced did not include the "Credentials" requirement. The absence of a password meant that the drives could only be mounted post boot (mount -a). If you were lucky, you might catch the option to type in a password during bootup. All this was resolved by pulling the required entries from the laptop and amending the fstab file and adding the appropriate "Credentials".
As I indicated earlier, I had hoped that this would be resolved in Mga 6, but the situation, in some respects is worse. The entry in the Control Centre still has no option to add a password, and there seems to be a problem with the search function for finding new servers. I have three devices that I wish to mount. In date order, they are a Drobo-FS, from Data Robotics, A Transporter, by Collected Data, and lately and still shiny new, a Drobo 5N, again by Data Robotics. Poperly mounted there are no problems, save for the requirement that writing to the devices can only be done by root, which is the subject of another thread, and has always been the case. However a new, or perhaps not so new problem has arisen. The 'find new servers' function in the Control Centre, has always been a hit and miss affair, requiring a few searches to locate all accessible drives on the network. On building Mga 6 on a Thinkpad T420 (a 64 bit machine), a search for available servers always locates the Transporter, but never, at any time, has it located either of the Drobo devices. Added to this, the option to add a password is absent, and the "Credentials" option is not invoked.

[doktor5000]

It might help if you edit that wall of text and add some paragraphs here and there ...

[rodgoslin]

I cannot see a problem in the grammatical structure. It seemed to me that it was a problem which required a detailed explanation. What would you like me me to leave out?

[doktor5000]

I didn't mention anything about grammatical structure.

What would you like me me to leave out?

I suggested to add a few paragraphs (linebreaks) here and there to make it more readable, to increase your chances of others reading it.

[rodgoslin]

I've raised this matter of bringing the password option back into drive sharing, as a bug report. Looking into the wiki's of other distro's in regard to 'open' or 'credentials' form in fstab, seems to indicate that either option is satisfactory, in use, but that the 'credentials' form is the more secure in regards to password security. I may as well close this thread and await results from the bug report.