Storage: CIFS

Storage pool type: cifs

The CIFS backend extends the directory backend, so that no manual setup of a CIFS mount is needed. Such a storage can be added directly through the Proxmox VE API or the web UI, with all our backend advantages, like server heartbeat check or comfortable selection of exported shares.

Configuration

The backend supports all common storage properties, except the shared flag, which is always set. Additionally, the following CIFS special properties are available:

server

Server IP or DNS name. Required.

To avoid DNS lookup delays, it is usually preferable to use an IP address instead of a DNS name - unless you have a very reliable DNS server, or list the server in the local /etc/hosts file.

share

CIFS share to use (get available ones with pvesm scan cifs <address> or the web UI). Required.

username

The username for the CIFS storage. Optional, defaults to ‘guest’.

password

The user password. Optional. It will be saved in a file only readable by root (/etc/pve/priv/storage/<STORAGE-ID>.pw).

domain

Sets the user domain (workgroup) for this storage. Optional.

smbversion

SMB protocol Version. Optional, default is 3. SMB1 is not supported due to security issues.

path

The local mount point. Optional, defaults to /mnt/pve/<STORAGE_ID>/.

content-dirs

Overrides for the default directory layout. Optional.

options

Additional CIFS mount options (see man mount.cifs). Some options are set automatically and shouldn’t be set here. Proxmox VE will always set the option soft. Depending on the configuration, these options are set automatically: username, credentials, guest, domain, vers.

subdir

The subdirectory of the share to mount. Optional, defaults to the root directory of the share.

Configuration Example (/etc/pve/storage.cfg)

cifs: backup
        path /mnt/pve/backup
        server 10.0.0.11
        share VMData
        content backup
        options noserverino,echo_interval=30
        username anna
        smbversion 3
        subdir /data

Storage Features

CIFS does not support snapshots on a storage level. But you may use qcow2 backing files if you still want to have snapshots and cloning features available.

Table 1. Storage features for backend cifs

Content types	Image formats	Shared	Snapshots	Clones
images rootdir vztmpl iso backup snippets	raw qcow2 vmdk	yes	qcow2	qcow2

Examples

You can get a list of exported CIFS shares with:

# pvesm scan cifs <server> [--username <username>] [--password]

Then you could add this share as a storage to the whole Proxmox VE cluster with:

# pvesm add cifs <storagename> --server <server> --share <share> [--username <username>] [--password]

See Also

• Storage