On Unix-like operating systems, the smbclient command launches an ftp-like client to access SMB/CIFS resources on servers.

Description

smbclient is a client that is part of the Samba software suite. It communicates with a LAN Manager server, offering an interface similar to that of the ftp program. Operations include things like getting files from the server to the local machine, putting files from the local machine to the server, retrieving directory information from the server and so on.

Syntax

Options

Feb 26, 2021 The Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol is a network file sharing protocol, and as implemented in Microsoft Windows is known as Microsoft SMB Protocol. The set of message packets that defines a particular version of the protocol is called a dialect. Aug 08, 2017 When Windows 10 was released, it seemingly broke the ability to easily connect to Linux Samba shares. Considering how many businesses rely on Samba for the sharing of folders, this was a bad move.

servicename	servicename is the name of the service you want to use on the server. A service name takes the form serverservice where server is the netbios name of the LAN Manager server offering the desired service and service is the name of the service offered. So to connect to the service 'printer' on the LAN Manager server 'lanman', you would use the servicename lanmanprinter. Note that the server name required isn't necessarily the hostname of the server. The name required is a LAN Manager server name, which may or may not be the same as the hostname of the machine running the server.
password	password is the password required to access the specified service on the specified server. If supplied, the -N option (suppress password prompt) is assumed. There is no default password. If no password is supplied on the command line (either here or using the -U option (see below)) and -N is not specified, the client will prompt for a password, even if the desired service does not require one. (If no password is required, press Enter to provide a null password.) Note: Some servers (including OS/2 and Windows for Workgroups) insist on an uppercase password. Lowercase or mixed case passwords may be rejected by these servers. Be cautious about including passwords in scripts.
-A	This parameter, if specified, causes the maximum debug level to be selected. Be warned that this generates prodigious amounts of debug data. There is also a security issue involved, as at the maximum debug level cleartext passwords may be written to some log files.
-L	This option allows you to look at what services are available on a server. You use it as 'smbclient -L host' and a list should appear. The -I option may be useful if your netbios names don't match your tcp/ip hostnames or if you are trying to reach a host on another network. For example: will list the shares available on Microsoft's public server.
-M	This options allows you to send messages, using the 'WinPopup' protocol, to another computer. Once a connection is established you then type your message, pressing ^D (control-D) to end. If the receiving computer is running WinPopup the user will receive the message and probably a beep. If they are not running WinPopup the message will be lost, and no error message will occur. The message is also automatically truncated if the message is over 1600 bytes, as this is the limit of the protocol. One useful trick is to cat the message through smbclient. For example: cat mymessage.txt \| smbclient -M FRED will send the message in the file 'mymessage.txt' to the machine FRED. You may also find the -U and -I options useful, as they allow you to control the FROM and TO parts of the message. See the message command section of smb.conf(5) for a description of how to handle incoming WinPopup messages in Samba. Copy WinPopup into the startup group on your WfWg PCs if you want them to always be able to receive messages.
-E	This parameter, if specified, causes the client to write messages to the standard error stream (stderr) rather than to the standard output stream. By default, the client writes messages to standard output, often the user's tty.
-IIP number	IP number represents the IP number of the server to connect to. It should be specified in standard 'a.b.c.d' notation. Normally the client will attempt to locate the specified LAN Manager server by looking it up: that is, broadcasting a request for the given server to identify itself. Using this parameter will force the client to assume that the server is on the machine with the specified IP number. There is no default for this parameter. If not supplied, it will be determined automatically by the client as described above.
-N	If specified, this parameter suppresses the normal password prompt from the client to the user. This is useful when accessing a service that does not require a password. Unless a password is specified on the command line or this parameter is specified, the client will request a password.
-Osocket-options	See the socket options section of smb.conf(5) for details.
-P	If specified, the service requested will be connected to as a printer service rather than as a normal filespace service. Operations such as put and get will not be applicable for such a connection. By default, services will be connected to as NON-printer services.
-Uusername	username is the username that will be used by the client to make a connection, assuming your server is running a protocol that allows for usernames. Some servers are fussy about the case of this name, and some insist that it must be a valid netbios name. If no username is supplied, it will default to an uppercase version of the environment variable USER or LOGNAME in that order. If no username is supplied and neither environment variable exists the username will be empty. If the service you are connecting to requires a password, it can be supplied using the -U option, by appending a percent symbol ('%') then the password to username. For example, to attach to a service as user 'fred' with password 'secret', you would specify -U fred%secret on the command line. Note that there are no spaces around the percent symbol. If you specify the password as part of username then the -N option (suppress password prompt) is assumed. If you specify the password as a parameter AND as part of username then the password as part of username takes precedence. Putting nothing before or nothing after the percent symbol will cause an empty username or an empty password to be used, respectively. Note: Some servers (including OS/2 and Windows for Workgroups) insist on an uppercase password. Lowercase or mixed case passwords may be rejected by these servers. Be cautious about including passwords in scripts.
-ddebuglevel	debuglevel is an integer from 0 to 5. The default value if this parameter is not specified is zero. The higher this value, the more detail will be logged to the log files about the activities of the client. At level 0, only critical errors and serious warnings will be logged. Level 1 is a reasonable level for day to day running - it generates a small amount of information about operations carried out. Levels above 1 will generate considerable amounts of log data, and should only be used when investigating a problem. Levels above 3 are designed for use only by developers and generate HUGE amounts of log data, that can be extremely cryptic.
-llog basename	If specified, log basename specifies a base file name into which operational data from the running client will be logged. The default base name is specified at compile time. The base name is used to generate actual log file names. For example, if the name specified was 'log', the following files would be used for log data: log.client.debug (containing debugging information) log.cl

Smb Client