I have a recurring problem with mounting/un-mounting remote directories via SMB, however I don't know what triggers the problem nor how to resolve it.
Background:
After successfully mounting the directory via SMB and some time using it, the directory seems to unmount by itself. When this happens, I am unable to re-mount the directory until I restart my system.
If I don't restart the system and use the "Connect to Server" dialog to try to mount the directory via SMB, the dialog disappears as though the connection was successful, however nothing is mounted.
If I try to do the same thing with a parent directory (which is the root directory of the server), then the connection appears to be successful and prompts me to "Select the volumes you want to mount on 'xyz.server.name':" with a listing of directories. The directory that I previously mounted (which auto-unmounted) is listed, but is ghosted out and therefore unable to be selected.
When SSH-ing into the server, there does not appear to be any problem with accessing the directory.
This problem occurs for other remote directories as well (though I have not been able to test it on another server).
Also, when trying to reconnect under this scenario, Console reports the following issue:
"30/10/2014 11:48:20.520 am NetAuthSysAgent[3346]: smb_mount: mount failed to my.server.com/mydirectory, syserr = File exists"
Questions:
i) What is causing the directory/volume to be unmounted?
ii) How can I prevent the auto-unmount from happening?
iii) If an auto-unmount occurs, how can I re-mount the directory without restarting?
System details:
OS X 10.9.5
Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013
Server details:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.11 (Tikanga)
Kernel version 2.6.18-371.8.1.el5
Output of df:
Before problem:
Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2 975425848 899360656 75553192 93% 112484080 9444149 92% /
devfs 371 371 0 100% 644 0 100% /dev
map -hosts 0 0 0 100% 0 0 100% /net
map auto_home 0 0 0 100% 0 0 100% /home
//[email protected]/josh 10568950416 10486471008 82479408 100% 0 18446744073709551615 0% /Volumes/josh
//[email protected]/semantic 12682735248 7708953400 4973781848 61% 0 18446744073709551615 0% /Volumes/semantic
After problem:
Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2 975425848 899350976 75562872 93% 112482870 9445359 92% /
devfs 373 373 0 100% 648 0 100% /dev
map -hosts 0 0 0 100% 0 0 100% /net
map auto_home 0 0 0 100% 0 0 100% /home
//[email protected]/josh 10568950416 10466951592 101998824 100% 0 18446744073709551615 0% /Volumes/josh
//[email protected]/semantic 12682735248 7708953400 4973781848 61% 0 18446744073709551615 0% /Volumes/semantic
Observations:
The mounted directories are still listed in /Volumes when viewed from the terminal, (i.e. 'ls /Volumes'), though this is not always the case, but both directories are inaccessible. They are not visible within Finder at all.
However, I am able to still access the content of one of the directories from Matlab, which was already within a subdirectory of this directory (its working directory). If I then move outside of the directory in Matlab (say, to my home directory), I am unable to return to it via the 'cd' command but instead need to press the back button within the file navigation toolbar and then everything is accessible again from within Matlab.
cd /Volumes/josh
fromTerminal
?