Sharity is a software that will let you connect your Unix computer to any Windows, Samba or other SMB/CIFS Server. Sharity is a cross platform network file system mounting Windows shares transparently, just as if they were part of your local hard disk. I was always looking for a way to  mount my windows drives or directories under my unix (Solaris and Linux) server. In Solaris world it was in particular difficult to accomplish, linux is much easier to deal with. On Solaris platform with Samba I was able to view windows partitions but I was unable to mount them. On Linux I was able to mount Windows partitions using samba. Anyway so one day I did come accross Sharity software, did try it and it worked out just great for me. In my previous work and current one as well I did recommend that software and we started to use it. So its not only great for your home unix environment but also for professional environment as well.

Some of Sharity features:

• Superset of Linux smbmount/smbfs functionality.
• Access to directories exported by Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP, Samba, and others.
• Automatic resource location: Network browsing similar to Windows Network Neighborhood.
• Available for Sun Solaris, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, IBM AIX, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Tru64 Unix and Mac OS X. Others on request.
• Secure authentication with NTLM, NTLMv2, NTLMSSP and Kerberos.
• Supports Microsoft’s DFS (Distributed File System).
• Access to Windows 2000 domains: Active Directory browsing and Kerberos authentication.
• Tools to read and modify Windows Access Control Lists (ACLs).
• User interaction with Graphic User Interface (GUI) or command line.
• Keychain database for managing server, share and domain passwords.
• Internationalized for English and German, character set conversion for Asian encodings.

Sharity 3 Compared

Sharity versus Samba’s smbclient

Smbclient is an FTP-like command line tool to transfer files to or from an SMB/CIFS server. Sharity, on the other hand, mounts the shared directories in the Unix file system. If you want to edit a file using smbclient, you must first copy it to your local disk, edit it and then copy it back. With Sharity, the file appears in your file system and you can open it directly.

Sharity versus NFS

NFS (Sun’s Network File System) is a file sharing protocol used among Unix machines. NFS server software is available for Windows, but it is a separate installation. NFS on Windows is often plagued by file permission and performance problems. Sharity requires no modification on the server whatsoever: It mimics a Windows client. By using the SMB/CIFS protocol on the wire, Sharity circumvents the security problems often seen with NFS.

Sharity versus Samba’s smbmount

Smbmount/smbfs and Sharity are pretty similar. Both mount the shared directories directly in the Unix file system. However, Sharity has the following advantages:

• Available for Solaris, AIX, HPUX, IRIX and others (smbmount is only available for Linux).
• Can browse network resources similar to Windows “Network Neighborhood”.
• Permissions for mounted shares need not be determined at mount time, any user can authenticate to the server to gain access.
• Supports DFS and ACLs.
• Sharity needs no kernel module. This is an advantage on custom Linux systems such as Rackstar OS where you want to avoid changing the kernel.

Sharity versus Apple’s SMB client in Mac OS X

These products are very similar, too. Both make shared directories available as network drives. Sharity’s advantages over Apple’s client are:

• Browsing of workgroups and servers works more reliably.
• Network drives are not disconnected after an extended sleep.
• Compatible with Windows 2003 (implements SMB signing).
• Implements NTLM, NTLMv2, NTLMSSP and Kerberos authentication.
• Supports DFS and ACLs.

Anyway you can download it and give it a try at the Sharity’s website. Its certainly worth giving it a try. It works for me and I am very very happy with it.

www.obdev.at/products/sharity/index.html