smbmount permissions

I had a shell script working for backup that used smbmount (under 9.1). Now, after an automated Yast Online Update, it doesn't work because smbmount lacks suid permission. When I tried increasing the permissions of /usr/sbin/smbmount by +s, however, and calling smbmount again, I got a complaint from libsmb that "you must NOT suid smbmount". (That's not the exact wording; the machine where all this was happening is not at the same place I'm now writing from.) What's the correct way to enable ordinary users to run smbmount and to ensure that an online update doesn't undo that action? Paul