SMB network mounting in ipad

[hayder78]

I read in the samba app in cydia that it works as smb server in ipad and a note has been written:

- This port will not allow you to mount an external SMB drive on your iPhone (that would require a kernel driver).

Actually, that is exactly what I am looking for.

I wasted a tremendous time searching for anything enabling my ipad to see a shared smb folder on my windows xp.

I have huge pdf files that I do not want to download or sync them everytime to see them for a fast preview on some pages. It will be the perfect solution to mount that windows folder inside the ipad file system and make a symbolic link via iFile to link that inside goodreader.

GOODREADER THEN WILL HAVE ACCESS TO 2 TERABYTE OF PDF FILES WITHOUT DOWNLOADING ANY OF THEM.

Any help or redirecting me to the correct place to search is highly appreciated.

Why nobody thought of this before?

Many thanks
Haider

 

[willerz2]

Samba hasn't been updated in ages, so the tweak in itself may or may not be running at full throttle from lack of support/update. There was a free app in the AppStore that was floating around that claimed that it supported SMB, which was called something like File Explorer or something along the lines if you want to give it a shot.

The other option that I'm aware of that still works is Netatalk, but is Mac/TC only AFAIK

 

[JewelGarden]

I read in the samba app in cydia that it works as smb server in ipad and a note has been written: - This port will not allow you to mount an external SMB drive on your iPhone (that would require a kernel driver). Actually, that is exactly what I am looking for. I wasted a tremendous time searching for anything enabling my ipad to see a shared smb folder on my windows xp. I have huge pdf files that I do not want to download or sync them everytime to see them for a fast preview on some pages. It will be the perfect solution to mount that windows folder inside the ipad file system and make a symbolic link via iFile to link that inside goodreader. GOODREADER THEN WILL HAVE ACCESS TO 2 TERABYTE OF PDF FILES WITHOUT DOWNLOADING ANY OF THEM. Any help or redirecting me to the correct place to search is highly appreciated. Why nobody thought of this before? Many thanks Haider

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but Buzz Viewer can connect to a shared folder on a PC or NAS using Samba. I use it to read and analyze historical documents in PDFs on my NAS. Their instructions in their help file were so clear that even I could follow them and get it to work!

 

[hayder78]

Samba hasn't been updated in ages, so the tweak in itself may or may not be running at full throttle from lack of support/update. There was a free app in the AppStore that was floating around that claimed that it supported SMB, which was called something like File Explorer or something along the lines if you want to give it a shot.

The other option that I'm aware of that still works is Netatalk, but is Mac/TC only AFAIK

Thanks for your reply.

Although samba is pretty old, but when I browse a remote shared folder from a laptop, it feels not bad.

You are right, File Explorer and a few other applications support smb. Goodreader itself can support opening and browsing samba (smb) shared folder. But what these applications do is to download the whole pdf file if you want to see even 1 page. This is not the case if the application truely mounted the shared folder inside the file system of the ipad. Just like when you open from let's say the laptop a shared remote folder inside a pc , you will see its folder as it was a local folder. When you open a pdf , it will open INSTANTLY just like it was a local file.

So far I have managed to do this in a jailbreaked ipad for a folder inside a thumbdrive. I could mount the thumbdrive and it became part of the file system of the ipad. Without any copy I can instantly open the 300MB pdf file.

Now I am looking for something like this for a NAS or samba shared folders.

Thanks again

 

[hayder78]

@JewelGarden Thanks for your suggestion.

I have not seen Buzz Viewer before. From your experience with Buzz Viewer, when you open a remote shared folder, and if you open a pdf , it will open INSTANTLY just like it was a local file? Or the app will download the pdf first in the background?

You can test this by opening a large pdf file ( several hundred MB) , you will see the app will take somethinkg like 20 seconds or more to open the pdf. This time is used to download the whole pdf.

For a true smb folder mount , the pdf file should be opened insantly just like it was a local file, no matter how large is the pdf file.

Can you test this if you still own the app?

 

[willerz2]

I believe @saurik hinted towards enhanced features on iFile for greater support of other OS and hardware from a discussion somewhere. I'll see if I can find it again. It may hint towards SMB and other protocols.