Emby Debian NAS storage via SMB mountpoint

[HanSolo 21]

Hi, 

I've been running Emby on an old Asustor NAS. Recently an upgrade broke Emby. Looks like rebuilding it is going to take a lot of time and effort so I'm thinking of using a Debian VM. I'm thinking of storing all the media on my NAS and using an SMB mount point to allow Emby to access all the media over the LAN. I have a sizable music library that's all been ripped from CD to FLAC and I have some TV and Movies that also has been ripped form discs that I own. 

I'm wondering if anyone has experience using SMB mountpoints for this application? Any issues with this approach? I found the documentation for installing Emby on Debian, if anyone has any tips or tricks that isn't in the docs that would also be very welcome as well! 

Thanks in advance

HS

[rdhardi 42]

1 hour ago, HanSolo said:

I'm wondering if anyone has experience using SMB mountpoints for this application?

Yes, I’ve been using SMB mounts on Ubuntu to point to our Emby media for several years now.

 

1 hour ago, HanSolo said:

Any issues with this approach?

No. The biggest "issue" for me was getting it all set up in Linux (after moving Emby server from Windows).

I have detailed notes, but I can’t find them now. It's been a while since I set it up, but IIRC, I had to search outside of Emby docs to find that info. 

Just did a quick search (I use DuckDuckGo) for "How to Mount a Samba Share in Linux"…many of the hits look familiar to what I remember.

[HanSolo 21]

22 minutes ago, rdhardi said:

Yes, I’ve been using SMB mounts on Ubuntu to point to our Emby media for several years now.

 

No. The biggest "issue" for me was getting it all set up in Linux (after moving Emby server from Windows).

I have detailed notes, but I can’t find them now. It's been a while since I set it up, but IIRC, I had to search outside of Emby docs to find that info. 

Just did a quick search (I use DuckDuckGo) for "How to Mount a Samba Share in Linux"…many of the hits look familiar to what I remember.

Great thank you very much for the feedback! Seems to confirm my initial thoughts, I'll probably start setting it up soon.

[Q-Droid 989]

Use the forum search to look for CIFS. You'll find many threads and posts on the subject.

 

[HanSolo 21]

Thank you that's helpful, it would have taken me a few tries to search for CIFS, probably would have tried SMB, Samba and even NetBIOS before that! lol!

[rdhardi 42]

14 minutes ago, HanSolo said:

Thank you that's helpful, it would have taken me a few tries to search for CIFS, probably would have tried SMB, Samba and even NetBIOS before that! lol!

Same here, back when I set mine up...CIFS wasn't even on my radar, lol! Since then, I'm more experienced in Linux.

Thanks @Q-Droidfor sharing that!

[guunter 49]

6 hours ago, HanSolo said:

Thank you that's helpful, it would have taken me a few tries to search for CIFS, probably would have tried SMB, Samba and even NetBIOS before that! lol!

1. sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

2.  Make the mount folder, sudo mkdir /mnt/somename

3. Create a smb cred file. 

sudo nano /home/username/.smbcred

In the file write,

username=smbuser

password=smbpassword

ctrl + o (writes the data)

ctrl + x ( exits nano)

4. sudo chmod 600 /home/username/.smbcred

5. sudo nano /etc/fstab

6. add your mount on a new line

//smbshare/Mediafolder /mnt/somename cifs credentials=/home/username/.smbcred,defaults 0 0

7. sudo systemctl daemon-reload

8. sudo mount -a

 

And your done. your share should be mounted. Sorry wrote this on an ipad if its hard to read

Edited October 16, 2025 by guunter

[HanSolo 21]

11 hours ago, guunter said:

Sorry wrote this on an ipad if its hard to read

No worries! Thank you for taking time to write that out it will be super helpful!!!!!

[HanSolo 21]

On 10/15/2025 at 11:02 PM, guunter said:

1. sudo apt-get install cifs-utils

2.  Make the mount folder, sudo mkdir /mnt/somename

3. Create a smb cred file. 

sudo nano /home/username/.smbcred

In the file write,

username=smbuser

password=smbpassword

ctrl + o (writes the data)

ctrl + x ( exits nano)

4. sudo chmod 600 /home/username/.smbcred

5. sudo nano /etc/fstab

6. add your mount on a new line

//smbshare/Mediafolder /mnt/somename cifs credentials=/home/username/.smbcred,defaults 0 0

7. sudo systemctl daemon-reload

8. sudo mount -a

 

And your done. your share should be mounted. Sorry wrote this on an ipad if its hard to read

Just wanted to say thanks again, this worked well, just took me forever to get to it. Still slowly rebuilding my emby server

-HS