I'd like to mount a Windows shared directory in a nonroot user's home directory on a Red Hat 5.3 linux machine.

I'll need to have the mounted directory owner and group be for a specific linux user account, let's say user jdoe, the mount point cannot be owned by the root account. If I use the following /etc/fstab line:

//192.168.100.100/share /home/jdoe/winserver guest 0 0

The share will be viewable but /home/jdoe/winserver will have root:root ownership and I need it to have jdoe:jdoe ownership. It's not enough to have 777 permissions on that mounted directory, I actually need it to be owned by jdoe. Why? Long story but it has to be that way trust me. Does anyone know how I can do that? Thanks!

That's done on the windows share server.
Then the regular cifs mount will allow the user access.

To amplify what Simon Bridge is saying:
* "ownership" is determined by the SERVER that SERVES the files
* Samba simply "maps" Linux identities. It doesn't *control* them.

So if you want the file owned by "jdoe", by all means - do it. But do it on Windows.

Ideally, you'll also define a Linux user "jdoe", and map the Linux user to the Windows user.

Or maybe you're in an LDAP environment, in which case both Windows and Linux will get the name from LDAP.

"root" needn't (and shouldn't) be part of any of this.

Thanks for the replies.

There's no root user on the Windows server, yet the root is showing up as owning the linux mount point and all files/directores in that shared folder when I use that fstab line I have now. Why is that if there is no user named root on the Windows server?

BTW currently the Windows shared folder does not require any username or password to access it, thus the guest option in the fstab.