Proxmox - Guests (VMs and Containers) - Mount a Network Share in a Linux Container

How to mount a Network Share inside an Unprivileged (or Privileged) Linux Container (LXC) in Proxmox.

NOTE: This is non-trivial because Unprivileged LXC Containers do not have the privileges available to directly mount network locations.

The work around involves mounting the network share on the Container Host and then binding the mount folder on the host to a folder in the Container.

Unprivileged containers will only be able to read from Network Shares.
Privileged containers will be able to read from and write to Network Shares.
You cannot modify the Privilege of a container once it is made.
- If can restore a container in either Privileged or Unprivileged mode, converting a container from Unprivileged to Privileged should be fairly straight forward.
- The reverse isn't always true because there are files on a Privileged container that cannot exist on an Unprivileged container.

Create the mount point directory

Log into the Container as root.

mkdir /mnt/extfolder

Use the GUI.

NOTE: If necessary, create a credentials file with the username and password for the network share.

Add the following lines to /root/.credentials/my-credentials.

username=theusername
password=thepassword
workgroup=theworkgroup

Save your changes.

chmod 600 /root/.credentials/my-credentials

mkdir /mnt/netfolder

Add a line to your fstab file to mount the network share:

Add the following line to the bottom:

//net/path/to/netfolder /mnt/netfolder cifs user,credentials=/root/.credentials/my-credentials,iocharset=utf8,noperm 0 0

mount -a

NOTE: The network share content should be visible at /mnt/netfolder.

Edit /etc/pve/nodes/hostname/lxc/mycontainer.conf.

Add the following line after memory and before net0.

mp0: /mnt/netfolder,mp=/mnt/extfolder

NOTE: The network share should be accessible at /mnt/extfolder