I want to access the music collection on our big Windows XP-running game-playing desktop PC from my recycled Linux laptop down in the basement. I found a lot of information on connecting to a Linux file server from a Windows client, but not much on going the other way round. A bit here, and bit there, and this is what I came up with.

First, edit your /etc/hosts file and give the Windows machine a name:

192.168.1.2 pootie

Next, install the samba and smbfs packages using your method of choice.

Create a directory where the share will appear on your local filesystem.

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/music

Edit /etc/fstab and add a line for the mount. Here “pootie” is the name of the machine and “music” is the name of the share.

//pootie/music /mnt/music cifs exec,credentials=/etc/cifspw 0 0

Create a password file /etc/cifspw with the login credentials for your Windows account.

username=Jason password=ImNotGonnaTellYouThat

And secure the file:

$ sudo chmod 600 /etc/cifspw

Giddyup.

$ sudo mount -a

[http://industriousone.com/mounting-windows-shares-linux]