SMB/CIFS¶

Nextcloud can connect to Windows file servers or other SMB-compatible servers with the SMB/CIFS backend.

Note

The SMB/CIFS backend requires smbclient or the PHP smbclient module to be installed on the Nextcloud server. The PHP smbclient module is preferred, but either will work. These should be included in any Linux distribution. (See PECL smbclient if your distro does not include them.)

You need the following information:

Folder name for your local mountpoint.
Host: The URL of the Samba server.
Username: The username or domain/username used to login to the Samba server.
Password: the password to login to the Samba server.
Share: The share on the Samba server to mount.
Remote Subfolder: The remote subfolder inside the Samba share to mount (optional, defaults to /). To assign the Nextcloud logon username automatically to the subfolder, use $user instead of a particular subfolder name.
And finally, the Nextcloud users and groups who get access to the share.

Optionally, you can specify a Domain. This is useful in cases where the SMB server requires a domain and a username, and an advanced authentication mechanism like session credentials is used so that the username cannot be modified. This is concatenated with the username, so the backend gets domain\username

Note

For improved reliability and performance, we recommended installing libsmbclient-php, a native PHP module for connecting to SMB servers.

See Configuring External Storage (GUI) for additional mount options and information.

See External Storage Authentication mechanisms for more information on authentication schemes.