Red Hat Knowledgebase

The cifs kernel module which provides CIFS (Common Internet File System) network filesystem support in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 was developed upstream for 2.6-series kernels.

Red Hat is committed to delivering stable kernels for enterprise-class reliability, particularly with regard to filesystem data integrity. Customers needing CIFS filesystem support should install Red Hat Enterprise version 4. Since Red Hat's subscription model allows customers with active Red Hat Network subscriptions to run any supported release version of the same product, customers currently running older releases such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 can choose to install version 4 of the same product and remain fully supported.

Otherwise, if it is not possible to move from an older release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the smbfs module would need to be used.