[Feature Request] Mounting of SMB shares directly within retroarch?

[RaddedMC]

I just bought a Chromecast with Google TV and one of the things I want to try with it is emulation. The CC/GTV has a quad-core processor but only 4 GB of storage, and I have a personal file server with ~1 TB of storage with roms on it. It'd be really cool if I could read roms directly from my server's storage and play them on my chromecast or another device on my network, without having to use more storage on those devices. I know there are ways I can root my device and mount the file system that way but having it work within retroarch would be a lot easier to use with something like the remote.

[sahlberg]

libsmb2 might be a useful resource for this. ( https://github.com/sahlberg/libsmb2 ) This is the library that both Kodi and VLC use to provide access to SMB shares across all the the platforms that they support.

It supports building on windows/linux/osx/ios/android/ps2/ps3/... It interoperates with all moderns smb servers such as Windows/Samba/OSX/Azure/EMC/NetApp/

[StayPirate]

that would be a very nice feature to have, it is also mentioned https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/11773 and https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/issues/8653. For non-rooted android devices this can be used to access rw SMB shares (available on f-droid. But the problem is that Retroarch doesn't use the Andoird file picker, instead access directly the filesystem... this prevent you to select the mounted share. On the Nvidia shield this has been workedaround with a custom feature added by Nvidia. Does anybody knows how to map an Android file provider with a folder in the filesystem?

[gr33k]

Would love some way to access network shares...iOS can't mount them outside of File application. With ALL devices that have small storage (and can't directly mount a SMB/CIFS/Etc share), it would be ideal to have access to the network. I've read concerns from developers that they don't want to put in the extra code ... but it would definitely be useful if we can achieve it somehow. Androids, iOS, etc users would greatly appreciate it <3 - Great work on the software!

[Ronald-Diemicke]

Hey folks - just chiming in on this too - This would be great for the xbox port because there's no native SMB support on that platform...

[sahlberg]

Hey folks - just chiming in on this too - This would be great for the xbox port because there's no native SMB support on that platform...

libsmb2 build for xbox. It is what kodi and vlc use on xbox to provide smb2/3 support. libsmb2 also builds on android, osx, ios, and a bunch more platforms. Most likely it already supports all platforms that retroarch builds on, including ps2 and ps3. (yes, there is a tiny retroarch build for ps2)

[Goldman90]

Any news about this? Wanted to use retroarch in my chromecast but it doesnt fit any roms, so i'm hoping to be able to launch 'em from my smb

[hizzlekizzle]

Nope, no news.

[shad00m]

Smb support would make the Xbox series even more of a perfect emulation machine

[GreyFoxGer]

I want also this feature. It would be great to have all roms stored at some central place to have an access from all devices (like router)

[marceloMedeiros]

This feature is needed, badly.

[methanoid]

Adding my voice to the cries of support for this... Would make life easier for Android 12 users with that new file system hassle they have, and would mean I could store my roms on my server and have them available on ALL devices on my network (Android, PC, phones etc)