SMB shares of local Windows file server mounted as duplicates

opus-nbo
New Contributor

Intro:

Our organization uses Windows Server file shares (SMB) which are configured in Jamf Connect in a shares configuration profile. The shares are set to automount. Before implementing Jamf (Connect), users had to connect to the SMB shares with Finder CMD+K, typed the Server SMB path and authenticated with user and password of their local Active Directory Account. With Jamf Connect, this method is no longer used. Instead, Jamf Connect automatically mounts the SMB Shares using Kerberos authentication. All Macs are running macOS Monterey latest.

Problem:

When Macs are connected to SMB shares and lose network connectivity, either when

  • switching from wired LAN on a docking station to Wifi or vice versa
  • VPN disconnects (unexpected or willingly)

the currently connected SMB shares *should* be disconnected, too.

What happens instead is, shares somehow don't disconnect. Upon a connection to network/VPN is established again, Jamf Connect tries to mount these shares again, which results in the issue that Share names (Unix paths, not the name in Finder) change from Sharename to Sharename-1, Sharename-2 etc. depending on how many 'zombie' shares are present at the time.

The problem with this issue is that all Applications that rely on a consistent and persistent path, can't find their files any longer. A good example are InDesign documents which hold links to other files (graphics, images). 

/Volume/Sharename becomes /Volumes/Sharename-1, -2, -3 etc.

I have built a LaunchAgent to check for these duplicate mounts and unmount all mounts, if found, but this can't be a permanent solution.

Has someone seen such a behavior? I already opened a ticket at Jamf Support, but it seems that this is new.

2 REPLIES 2

sascha_neuroth
New Contributor II

i have the same issues by mounting the smb shares with nomad.

opus-nbo
New Contributor

@sascha_neuroth I found that a nice little app named networkShareMounter (https://gitlab.rrze.fau.de/faumac/networkShareMounter) works as intended. I am about to talk to our Jamf Customer Success Manager about it. In my opinion, the developers of Jamf Connect don't seem so see the problem. If an open source tool can handle it, why can't it Jamf Connect?