# Sharity

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> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharity
> Source revision: 1180491471
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

In [computing](/source/Computing), **Sharity** is a program to allow a [Unix](/source/Unix) system to mount [SMB](/source/Server_Message_Block) fileshares. It is developed by Christian Starkjohann of Objective Development Software GmbH and is [proprietary software](/source/Proprietary_software). As of 08 November 2010, the current version is 3.9.[1]

[Linux](/source/Linux) (using smbfs or cifsfs), and [FreeBSD](/source/FreeBSD), [NetBSD](/source/NetBSD), and [macOS](/source/MacOS) (using smbfs), can mount SMB natively. Most other [Unix](/source/Unix) and [Unix-like](/source/Unix-like) [operating systems](/source/Operating_system) cannot. In the proprietary Unix world, Sharity is a common solution to mounting SMB shares, as the usual recommended workaround — to run [Services for UNIX](/source/Services_for_UNIX) on the Windows file server and make the share available via NFS — is frequently unreliable in practice.

Sharity works by making an external SMB share appear to the kernel as an [NFS](/source/Network_File_System)-mounted file system. (Compare to smbclient from [Samba](/source/Samba_(software)), which either provides an [FTP](/source/File_Transfer_Protocol)-like interactive shell or sends commands to the [Windows](/source/Microsoft_Windows) file server to be executed remotely.)

The program runs on the following Unix and [Unix-like](/source/Unix-like) operating systems: macOS, [IRIX](/source/IRIX), [Solaris](/source/Solaris_(operating_system)), [HP-UX](/source/HP-UX), [FreeBSD](/source/FreeBSD), [NetBSD](/source/NetBSD), [OpenBSD](/source/OpenBSD), [BSD/OS](/source/BSD/OS), [Tru64](/source/Tru64_UNIX), [AIX](/source/IBM_AIX), [NEXTSTEP](/source/NEXTSTEP), [OpenStep](/source/OpenStep), [UnixWare](/source/UnixWare), [SunOS](/source/SunOS) 4, and Linux.

Sharity is a rewrite of an earlier program, Sharity-Light, which is [free software](/source/Free_software) under the [GPL](/source/GNU_General_Public_License) (having been derived from smbfs in Linux) but is limited in capabilities and is no longer developed. Sharity-Light was originally called Rumba (a [pun](/source/Pun) on "Samba"), but the name was trademarked to another company. Sharity-Light runs in user space rather than [kernel](/source/Kernel_(operating_system)) space.

## References

1. ["Release Notes"](https://www.obdev.at/products/sharity/releasenotes.html)

- [smbfs support](https://web.archive.org/web/20060219180731/http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=768&tstart=0) ([OpenSolaris](/source/OpenSolaris) RFE forums)
- [SMB Filesystem Driver](http://bugs.opensolaris.org/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4875431) (OpenSolaris BugDatabase)
- [Mounting an SMB share on Solaris.](http://www.sun.drydog.com/faq/s86faq.html#s9.15) (Solaris x86 FAQ)

## External links

- [Sharity](http://www.obdev.at/products/sharity/)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Sharity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharity) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharity?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.