Using Microsoft Windows file shares - Amazon FSx for Windows File Server
Accessing file shares

Using Microsoft Windows file shares

A Microsoft Windows file share is a specific folder in your file system. It includes that folder's subfolders, which you make accessible to your compute instances with the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. Your file system comes with a default Windows file share, named share. You can create and manage as many other Windows file shares as you want by using the Windows graphical user interface (GUI) tool named Shared Folders.

Accessing file shares

To access your file shares, you use the Windows Map Network Drive functionality to map a drive letter on your compute instance to your Amazon FSx file share. The process of mapping a file share to a drive on your compute instance is known as mounting a file share in Linux. This process differs depending on the type of compute instance and the operating system. After your file share is mapped, your applications and users can access files and folders on your file share as if they are local files and folders.

Following are procedures for mapping a file share on the different supported compute instances.

Mapping a file share on an Amazon EC2 Windows instance

You can map a file share on an EC2 Windows instance by using the Windows File Explorer or the command prompt.

  1. Launch the EC2 Windows instance and connect it to the Microsoft Active Directory that you joined your Amazon FSx file system to. To do this, choose one of the following procedures from the AWS Directory Service Administration Guide:

  2. Connect to your EC2 Windows instance. For more information, see Connecting to your Windows instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Windows Instances.

  3. After you're connected, open File Explorer.

  4. In the navigation pane, open the context (right-click) menu for Network, and choose Map Network Drive.

  5. For Drive, choose a drive letter.

  6. For Folder, enter either the file system's DNS name or a DNS alias associated with the file system, and the share name.

    Important

    Using an IP address instead of the DNS name could result in unavailability during the failover process of the Multi-AZ file system. Also, DNS names or associated DNS aliases are required for Kerberos-based authentication in Multi-AZ and Single-AZ file systems.

    You can find the file system's DNS name and any associated DNS aliases on the Amazon FSx console by choosing Windows File Server, Network & security. Or, you can find them in the response of the CreateFileSystem or DescribeFileSystems API operation. For more information about using DNS aliases, see Managing DNS aliases.

    • For a Single-AZ file system joined to an AWS Managed Microsoft Active Directory, the DNS name looks like the following.

      fs-0123456789abcdef0.ad-domain.com

    • For a Single-AZ file system joined to a self-managed Active Directory, and any Multi-AZ file system, the DNS name looks like the following.

      amznfsxaa11bb22.ad-domain.com

    For example, to use a Single-AZ file system's DNS name, enter the following for Folder.

    \\fs-0123456789abcdef0.ad-domain.com\share

    To use a Multi-AZ file system's DNS name, enter the following for Folder.

    \\famznfsxaa11bb22.ad-domain.com\share

    To use a DNS alias associated with the file system, enter the following for Folder.

    \\fqdn-dns-alias\share

  7. Choose an option for Reconnect at sign-in, which indicates whether the file share should reconnect at sign-in, and then choose Finish.

  1. Launch the EC2 Windows instance and connect it to the Microsoft Active Directory that you joined your Amazon FSx file system to. To do this, choose one of the following procedures from the AWS Directory Service Administration Guide:

  2. Connect to your EC2 Windows instance as a user in your AWS Managed Microsoft AD directory. For more information, see Connecting to your Windows instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Windows Instances.

  3. After you're connected, open a command prompt window.

  4. Mount the file share using a drive letter of your choice, the file system's DNS name, and the share name. You can find the DNS name using the Amazon FSx console by choosing Windows File Server, Network & security. Or, you can find them in the response of the CreateFileSystem or DescribeFileSystems API operation.

    • For a Single-AZ file system joined to an AWS Managed Microsoft Active Directory, the DNS name looks like the following.

      fs-0123456789abcdef0.ad-domain.com

    • For a Single-AZ file system joined to a self-managed Active Directory, and any Multi-AZ file system, the DNS name looks like the following.

      amznfsxaa11bb22.ad-domain.com

    The following is an example command to mount the file share.

    $ net use H: \\amzfsxaa11bb22.ad-domain.com\share /persistent:yes

    Instead of the net use command, you can also use any supported PowerShell command to mount a file share.

 

Mounting a file share on an Amazon EC2 Mac instance

You can mount a file share on an Amazon EC2 Mac instance that is either joined to your Active Directory or not joined. If the instance is not joined to your Active Directory, be sure to update the DHCP options set for the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) in which the instance resides to include the DNS name servers for your Active Directory domain. Then relaunch the instance.

  1. Launch the EC2 Mac instance. To do this, choose one of the following procedures from the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances:

  2. Connect to your EC2 Mac instance using Virtual Network Computing (VNC). For more information, see Connect to your instance using VNC in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

  3. On your EC2 Mac instance, connect to your Amazon FSx file share, as follows:

    1. Open Finder, choose Go, and then choose Connect to Server.

    2. In the Connect to Server dialog box, enter either the file system's DNS name or a DNS alias associated with the file system, and the share name. Then choose Connect.

      You can find the file system's DNS name and any associated DNS aliases on the Amazon FSx console by choosing Windows File Server, Network & security. Or, you can find them in the response of the CreateFileSystem or DescribeFileSystems API operation. For more information about using DNS aliases, see Managing DNS aliases.

      Mac connection screenshot showing the DNS and share names of the file system pane.

    3. On the next screen, choose Connect to continue.

    4. Enter your Microsoft Active Directory (AD) credentials for the Amazon FSx service account, as shown in the following example. Then choose Connect.

      Mac connection screenshot showing how to enter user credentials for the file system pane.

    5. If the connection is successful, you can see the Amazon FSx share, under Locations in your Finder window.

  1. Launch the EC2 Mac instance. To do this, choose one of the following procedures from the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances:

  2. Connect to your EC2 Mac instance using Virtual Network Computing (VNC). For more information, see Connect to your instance using VNC in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

  3. Mount the file share with the following command.

    mount_smbfs //file_system_dns_name/file_share mount_point

    You can find the DNS name on the Amazon FSx console by choosing Windows File Server, Network & security. Or, you can find them in the response of the CreateFileSystem or DescribeFileSystems API operation.

    • For a Single-AZ file system joined to an AWS Managed Microsoft Active Directory, the DNS name looks like the following.

      fs-0123456789abcdef0.ad-domain.com

    • For a Single-AZ file system joined to a self-managed Active Directory, and any Multi-AZ file system, the DNS name looks like the following.

      amznfsxaa11bb22.ad-domain.com

    The mount command used in this procedure does the following at the given points:

    • //file_system_dns_name/file_share – Specifies the DNS name and share of the file system to mount.

    • mount_point – The directory on the EC2 instance that you are mounting the file system to.

 

Mounting a file share on an Amazon EC2 Linux instance

You can mount an FSx for Windows File Server file share on an Amazon EC2 Linux instance that is either joined to your Active Directory or not joined.

Note

The following commands specify parameters such as SMB protocol, caching, and read and write buffer size as examples only. Parameter choices for the Linux cifs command, as well as the Linux kernel version used, can impact throughput and latency for network operations between the client and the Amazon FSx file system. For more information, see cifs documentation for the Linux environment you are using.

  1. If you don't already have a running EC2 Linux instance joined to your Microsoft Active Directory, see Manually join a Linux instance in the AWS Directory Service Administration Guide for the instructions to do so.

  2. Connect to your EC2 Linux instance. For more information, see Connect to your Linux instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

  3. Run the following command to install the cifs-utils package. This package is used to mount network file systems like Amazon FSx on Linux.

    $ sudo yum install cifs-utils

  4. Create the mount point directory /mnt/fsx. This is where you will mount the Amazon FSx file system.

    $ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/fsx

  5. Authenticate with kerberos using the following command.

    $ kinit

  6. Mount the file share with the following command.

    $ sudo mount -t cifs //file_system_dns_name/file_share mount_point --verbose -o vers=SMB_version,sec=krb5,cruid=ad_user,rsize=CIFSMaxBufSize,wsize=CIFSMaxBufSize,cache=none,ip=preferred-file-server-Ip

    You can find the DNS name on the Amazon FSx console by choosing Windows File Server, Network & security. Or, you can find them in the response of CreateFileSystem or DescribeFileSystems API operation.

    • For a Single-AZ file system joined to an AWS Managed Microsoft Active Directory, the DNS name looks like the following.

      fs-0123456789abcdef0.ad-domain.com

    • For a Single-AZ file system joined to a self-managed Active Directory, and any Multi-AZ file system, the DNS name looks like the following.

      amznfsxaa11bb22.ad-domain.com

    Replace CIFSMaxBufSize with the largest value allowed by your kernel. Run the following command to get this value.

    $ modinfo cifs | grep CIFSMaxBufSize
parm:           CIFSMaxBufSize:Network buffer size (not including header). Default: 16384 Range: 8192 to 130048 (uint)

    The output shows that the maximum buffer size is 130048.

  7. Verify that the file system is mounted by running the following command, which returns only file systems of the Common Internet File System (CIFS) type.

    $ mount -l -t cifs
//fs-0123456789abcdef0/share on /mnt/fsx type cifs (rw,relatime,vers=SMB_version,sec=krb5,cache=cache_mode,username=user1@CORP.NETWORK.COM,uid=0,noforceuid,gid=0,noforcegid,addr=192.0.2.0,file_mode=0755,dir_mode=0755,soft,nounix,serverino,mapposix,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,echo_interval=60,actimeo=1)

The mount command used in this procedure does the following at the given points:

  • //file_system_dns_name/file_share – Specifies the DNS name and share of the file system to mount.

  • mount_point – The directory on the EC2 instance that you are mounting the file system to.

  • -t cifs vers=SMB_version – Specifies the type of file system as CIFS and the SMB protocol version. Amazon FSx for Windows File Server supports SMB versions 2.0 through 3.1.1.

  • sec=krb5 – Specifies to use Kerberos version 5 for authentication.

  • cache=cache_mode – Sets the cache mode. This option for CIFS cache can impact performance, and you should test which settings work best (and review Linux documentation) for your kernel and workload. Options strict and none are recommended, because loose can cause data inconsistency due to the looser protocol semantics.

  • cruid=ad_user – Sets the uid of the owner of the credentials cache to the AD directory administrator.

  • /mnt/fsx – Specifies the mount point for the Amazon FSx file share on your EC2 instance.

  • rsize=CIFSMaxBufSize,wsize=CIFSMaxBufSize – Specifies the read and write buffer size as the maximum allowed by the CIFS protocol. Replace CIFSMaxBufSize with the largest value allowed by your kernel. Determine the CIFSMaxBufSize by running the following command.

    $ modinfo cifs | grep CIFSMaxBufSize
parm:           CIFSMaxBufSize:Network buffer size (not including header). Default: 16384 Range: 8192 to 130048 (uint)

    The output shows that the maximum buffer size is 130048.

  • ip=preferred-file-server-Ip – Sets the destination IP address to that of the file system's preferred file server.

    You can retrieve the file system's preferred file server IP address as follows:

    • Using the Amazon FSx console, on the Network & security tab of the File system details page.

    • In the response of the describe-file-systems CLI command or the equivalent DescribeFileSystems API command.

The following procedure mounts an Amazon FSx file share to an Amazon EC2 Linux instance that is not joined to your Active Directory (AD). For an EC2 Linux instance that is not joined to your Active Directory, you can only mount an FSx for Windows File Server file share by using its private IP address. You can get the file system's private IP address using the Amazon FSx console, on the Network & security tab, in Preferred File Server IP Address.

This example uses NTLM authentication. To do this, you mount the file system as a user that is a member of the Microsoft Active Directory domain that the FSx for Windows File Server file system is joined to. The credentials for the user account are provided in a text file that you create on your EC2 instance, creds.txt. This file contains the user name, password, and domain for the user.

$ cat creds.txt
username=user1
password=Password123
domain=EXAMPLE.COM
To launch and configure the Amazon Linux EC2 instance

  1. Launch an Amazon Linux EC2 instance using the Amazon EC2 console. For more information, see Launch an instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

  2. Connect to your Amazon Linux EC2 instance. For more information, see Connect to your Linux instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

  3. Run the following command to install the cifs-utils package. This package is used to mount network file systems like Amazon FSx on Linux.

    $ sudo yum install cifs-utils

  4. Create the mount point /mnt/fsxx where you plan to mount the Amazon FSx file system.

    $ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/fsx

  5. Create the creds.txt credentials file in the /home/ec2-user directory, using the format shown previously.

  6. Set the creds.txt file permissions so that only you (the owner) can read and write to the file by running the following command.

    $ chmod 700 creds.txt
To mount the file system

  1. You mount a file share not joined to your Active Directory by using its private IP address. You can get the file system's private IP address using the Amazon FSx console, on the Network & security tab, in the Preferred File Server IP Address.

  2. Mount the file system using the following command:

    $ sudo mount -t cifs //file-system-IP-address/file_share /mnt/fsx --verbose -o vers=SMB_version,sec=ntlmsspi,cred=/home/ec2-user/creds.txt,rsize=CIFSMaxBufSize,wsize=CIFSMaxBufSize,cache=none

    Replace CIFSMaxBufSize with the largest value allowed by your kernel. Run the following command to get this value.

    $ modinfo cifs | grep CIFSMaxBufSize
parm:           CIFSMaxBufSize:Network buffer size (not including header). Default: 16384 Range: 8192 to 130048 (uint)

    The output shows that the maximum buffer size is 130048.

  3. Verify that the file system is mounted by running the following command, which returns only CIFS file systems.

    $ mount -l -t cifs
//file-system-IP-address/file_share on /mnt/fsx type cifs (rw,relatime,vers=SMB_version,sec=ntlmsspi,cache=cache_mode,username=user1,domain=CORP.EXAMPLE.COM,uid=0,noforceuid,gid=0,noforcegid,addr=192.0.2.0,file_mode=0755,dir_mode=0755,soft,nounix,serverino,mapposix,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,echo_interval=60,actimeo=1)

The mount command used in this procedure does the following at the given points:

  • //file-system-IP-address/file_share – Specifies the IP address and share of the file system to mount.

  • -t cifs vers=SMB_version – Specifies the type of file system as CIFS and the SMB protocol version. Amazon FSx for Windows File Server supports SMB versions 2.0 through 3.1.1.

  • sec=ntlmsspi – Specifies to use NT LAN Manager Security Support Provider Interface (NTLMSSPI) for authentication.

  • cache=cache_mode – Sets the cache mode. This option for CIFS cache can impact performance, and you should test which settings work best (and review Linux documentation) for your kernel and workload. Options strict and none are recommended, because loose can cause data inconsistency due to the looser protocol semantics.

  • cred=/home/ec2-user/creds.txt – Specifies where to get the user credentials.

  • /mnt/fsx – Specifies the mount point for the Amazon FSx file share on your EC2 instance.

  • rsize=CIFSMaxBufSize,wsize=CIFSMaxBufSize – Specifies the read and write buffer size as the maximum allowed by the CIFS protocol. Replace CIFSMaxBufSize with the largest value allowed by your kernel. Determine the CIFSMaxBufSize by running the following command.

    $ modinfo cifs | grep CIFSMaxBufSize
parm:           CIFSMaxBufSize:Network buffer size (not including header). Default: 16384 Range: 8192 to 130048 (uint)

    The output shows that the maximum buffer size is 130048.

 

Automatically mounting file shares on an Amazon Linux EC2 instance not joined to your Active Directory

You can automatically mount your FSx for Windows File Server file share whenever the Amazon EC2 Linux instance to which it's mounted reboots. To do so, add an entry to the /etc/fstab file on the EC2 instance. The /etc/fstab file contains information about file systems. The command mount -a, which runs during instance startup, mounts the file systems listed in the /etc/fstab file.

For an Amazon Linux EC2 instance that is not joined to your Active Directory, you can only mount an FSx for Windows File Server file share by using its private IP address. You can get the file system's private IP address using the Amazon FSx console, on the Network & security tab, in Preferred File Server IP Address.

The following procedure uses Microsoft NTLM authentication. You mount the file system as a user that is a member of the Microsoft Active Directory domain to which the FSx for Windows File Server file system is joined. The credentials for the user account are provided in the text file creds.txt. This file contains the user name, password, and domain for the user.

$ cat creds.txt
username=user1
password=Password123
domain=EXAMPLE.COM
To launch and configure the Amazon Linux EC2 instance

  1. Launch an Amazon Linux EC2 instance using the Amazon EC2 console. For more information, see Launch an instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

  2. Connect to your instance. For more information, see Connect to your Linux instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

  3. Run the following command to install the cifs-utils package. This package is used to mount network file systems like Amazon FSx on Linux.

    $ sudo yum install cifs-utils

  4. Create the /mnt/fsx directory. This is where you will mount the Amazon FSx file system.

    $ sudo mkdir /mnt/fsx

  5. Create the creds.txt credentials file in the /home/ec2-user directory.

  6. Set the file permissions so that only you (the owner) can read the file by running the following command.

    $ sudo chmod 700 creds.txt
To automatically mount the file system

  1. You automatically mount a file share not joined to your Active Directory by using its private IP address. You can get the file system's private IP address from the Amazon FSx console, in the Network & security tab, the Preferred File Server IP Address.

  2. To automatically mount the file share using its private IP address, add the following line to the /etc/fstab file.

    //file-system-IP-address/file_share /mnt/fsx cifs vers=SMB_version,sec=ntlmsspi,cred=/home/ec2-user/creds.txt,rsize=CIFSMaxBufSize,wsize=CIFSMaxBufSize,cache=none

    Replace CIFSMaxBufSize with the largest value allowed by your kernel. Run the following command to get this value.

    $ modinfo cifs | grep CIFSMaxBufSize
parm:           CIFSMaxBufSize:Network buffer size (not including header). Default: 16384 Range: 8192 to 130048 (uint)

    The output shows that the maximum buffer size is 130048.

  3. Test the fstab entry by using the mount command with the 'fake' option in conjunction with the 'all' and 'verbose' options.

    $ sudo mount -fav
home/ec2-user/fsx      : successfully mounted

  4. To mount the file share, reboot the Amazon EC2 instance.

  5. When the instance is available again, verify that the file system is mounted by running the following command.

    $ sudo mount -l -t cifs
//file-system-IP-address/file_share on /mnt/fsx type cifs (rw,relatime,vers=SMB_version,sec=ntlmsspi,cache=cache_code,username=user1,domain=CORP.EXAMPLE.COM,uid=0,noforceuid,gid=0,noforcegid,addr=192.0.20.0,file_mode=0755,dir_mode=0755,soft,nounix,serverino,mapposix,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,echo_interval=60,actimeo=1)

    The line added to the /etc/fstab file in this procedure does the following at the given points:

    • //file-system-IP-address/file_share – Specifies the IP address and share of the Amazon FSx file system you're mounting.

    • /mnt/fsx – Specifies the mount point for the Amazon FSx file system on your EC2 instance.

    • cifs vers=SMB_version – Specifies the type of file system as CIFS and the SMB protocol version. Amazon FSx for Windows File Server supports SMB versions 2.0 through 3.1.1.

    • sec=ntlmsspi – Specifies using NT LAN Manager Security Support Provider Interface to facilitate NTLM challenge-response authentication.

    • cache=cache_mode – Sets the cache mode. This option for CIFS cache can impact performance, and you should test which settings work best (and review Linux documentation) for your kernel and workload. Options strict and none are recommended, because loose can cause data inconsistency due to the looser protocol semantics.

    • cred=/home/ec2-user/creds.txt – Specifies where to get the user credentials.

    • _netdev – Tells the operating system that the file system resides on a device that requires network access. Using this option prevents the instance from mounting the file system until the network service is enabled on the client.

    • 0 – Indicates that the file system should be backed up by dump, if it's a nonzero value. For Amazon FSx, this value should be 0.

    • 0 – Specifies the order in which fsck checks file systems at boot. For Amazon FSx file systems, this value should be 0 to indicate that fsck shouldn't run at startup.