How can I mount a directory from one Raspberry Pi to another

Question

I have the following problem: I have 2 Raspberry Pi in my network and want to mount a directory from my Raspberry Pi 2, running Samba version 4.2.14-Debian to my new Raspberry Pi 4 running Samba version 4.9.5-Debian.

On my Raspberry Pi 2 I defined in /etc/samba/smb.conf

[test]
  valid users = pi
  guest ok = yes
  path = /home/pi/test
  writeable = yes

Now I can mount this drive on my Windows 10 PC:

Now I tried on my Raspberry Pi 4 to mount this directory:

$ sudo mount.cifs //192.xxx.yyy.29/home/pi/test /home/pi/test -o user=pi,pass=xyz

but I get always the error message:

mount error(2): No such file or directory
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs)

I played around with the version option and tried all versions from 1.0 to 3.1.1 but no success :(

Answer 1

First DO NOT try to obscure Local IP addresses - they are private and inaccessible to anyone outside your network and just make your Question harder to read.

I have the following shares in my /etc/samba/smb.conf (I believe this may be standard to allow access to /home directories.)

[homes]
   comment = Home Directories
   browseable = yes

NOTE You mount a share not a directory. In your case this would be test

I can mount remote Pi with:-

sudo mount.cifs //MilliwaysPi4.local/pi /mnt/SDA2  -o user=pi

or

sudo mount.cifs //MilliwaysPi4.local/pi/bin  /mnt/SDA2  -o user=pi

NOTE Use a sensible mount point with root access, although you can in principle use any directory

NOTE # Testing the Share Access (on sharing server)
sudo smbclient -U ian //MilliwaysPi4/homes
sudo smbclient -U pi //MilliwaysPi4/pi

Then enter command at the smb: prompt

smb: \> ls
smb: \> quit

Answer 2

As an alternative you may find the following script useful.

This uses nfs rather than samba, and requires nfs to be installed on the server sudo apt install nfs-kernel-server and /etc/exports to be configured. Mine contains the following to share homes:-

/home/pi *(rw,sync,no_subtree_check)

This could easily be adapted to mount any directory

#!/bin/bash
# Mount Remote Pi HOME directory
# remotePi [REMOTENAME [USERNAME]]
# Defaults to MilliwaysPi4 pi
# 2018-12-16

R_MOUNT='/mnt/remotePi'

# Check/create Mount Point
if [ ! -e $R_MOUNT ]; then
    sudo mkdir $R_MOUNT
fi

if [ $# -eq 0 ] ; then
    REMOTENAME='MilliwaysPi4'
else
    REMOTENAME=$1
fi

if [  $# -eq 2 ] ; then
    USERNAME=$2
else
    USERNAME='pi'
fi

# echo "USER" $USERNAME
REMOTENAME+=".local"
# echo $REMOTENAME
REMOTEDIR=$REMOTENAME
REMOTEDIR+=':/home/'
REMOTEDIR+=$USERNAME
REMOTEDIR+='/'
# echo $REMOTEDIR

if [ ! -z "$(ls -A $R_MOUNT)" ]; then
    sudo umount /mnt/remotePi
fi

sudo mount $REMOTEDIR /mnt/remotePi/