proxmox ve How to Add a Windows SMB/CIFS Share as Storage on Proxmox VE

[Linux Hint]

You can add/mount an SMB/CIFS share from your Windows OS or NAS device on Proxmox VE as storage for storing ISO images, container images, VM disk images, backups, etc.

In this article, I am going to show you how to add a Windows SMB/CIFS share on Proxmox VE as storage.

 

Table of Contents:

1. Adding an SMB/CIFS Share as Storage on Proxmox VE
2. Accessing the SMB/CIFS Storage on Proxmox VE
3. Conclusion

 

Adding an SMB/CIFS Share as Storage on Proxmox VE:

To add an SMB/CIFS share on Proxmox VE as storage, navigate to Datacenter > Storage and click on Add > SMB/CIFS as marked in the screenshot below.

Type in an ID/name for the SMB/CIFS storage^[1], the domain name or IP address of the SMB/CIFS server^[2], and the login username^[3] and password^[4] of the SMB/CIFS server. If all the details are correct, you should be able to select the SMB/CIFS share you want to add to Proxmox VE from the Share dropdown menu^[5].

You can also add a subdirectory of the SMB/CIFS share on Proxmox VE. To do that, type in a subdirectory path in the Subdirectory section^[6].

From the Content dropdown menu, you can select the type of data you want to store on the SMB/CIFS share.

Disk image: If selected, the disks of the Proxmox VE virtual machines can be stored on this storage.

ISO image: If selected, the ISO installation images of different operating systems can be stored on this storage.

Container template: If selected, the LXC container template files can be stored on this storage.

VZDump backup file: If selected, the Proxmox VE virtual machine and container backups can be stored on this storage.

Container: If selected, the disks of the Proxmox VE LXC containers can be stored on this storage.

Snippets: If selected, you can store Proxmox VE snippets on this storage.

Once you’re done, click on Add.

A new SMB/CIFS storage should be added to Proxmox VE^[1]. You can also find the mount path of the SMB/CIFS share in the Datacenter > Storage section^[2]. The SMB/CIFS storage should also be displayed in the Proxmox VE server tree^[3].

Accessing the SMB/CIFS Storage on Proxmox VE:

You can access only the Proxmox VE contents stored on the SMB/CIFS storage from the Proxmox VE dashboard.

In the Summary section of the SMB/CIFS storage, you will see usage information of the SMB/CIFS storage.

For each selected content, you will see respective sections in the SMB/CIFS storage.

For example, for ISO image content type, I have a section ISO Images on my SMB/CIFS storage nas-datastore that shows all the ISO installation images that I have stored on the SMB/CIFS storage.

You can access all the files of the SMB/CIFS storage on your Proxmox VE server from the command line.

In this case, the nas-datastore SMB/CIFS storage is mounted in the path /mnt/pve/nas-datastore and all the files of the SMB/CIFS storage are available in that mount path.

Conclusion:

In this article, I have shown you how to add an SMB/CIFS share as storage on Proxmox VE. I have also shown you how to access the SMB/CIFS storage on Proxmox VE.

 

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