RetroPie: Run ROMs from Samba share

[^rooker]

Here's a short HowTo for playing ScummVM ROMs on RetroPie (Raspberry Pi1) that are located on a fileserver, shared over smb/cifs (using "Samba"):

In order to use this HowTo for your purposes, replace the following words to match your environment:

• "servername": This should be the hostname of your fileserver. Can be a FQDN.
• "browse": This is the name of the SMB/CIFS network share.

Set up a shared network folder:
The ScummVM savegames are stored locally on the RetroPie, so there's no need for write access to the share.
Here's an example of my Samba configuration (in /etc/samba/smb.conf) for this share:

[browse]
comment = Feel free to browse. Public read-only access.
path = /mnt/storage/browse
browseable = yes
read only = yes
guest ok = yes

Mount the network share on the RetroPie:
SSH to the RetroPie.
Create a mountpoint for your network share:

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$ mkdir /mnt/servername/browse

Add a line like this to /etc/fstab:

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//servername/browse /mnt/servername/browse   cifs    auto,uid=pi,gid=pi,guest,nounix,noserverino,defaults,users  0       0

Check if it works:

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$ mount /mnt/servername/browse

On the next reboot, this share should be mounted automatically.

Create a symlink for easier access in the GUI:
For ScummVM, place a symbolic link to the mountpoint we've set up before.
This link will show up as folder when you open the ScummVM emulator, so you don't have to walk through the whole file structure to gain access to your network-shared ROM folder.

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$ ln -s /mnt/servername/browse/games/ScummVM/ /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/scummvm/server

For example, I have the ScummVM files in the subfolder "games/ScummVM" on the share "browse".
I've called my symlink "server", but you can choose any name you prefer.

That's basically it.
Now you don't have to copy the ROMs to the SD card anymore, but play them directly from your fileserver