[linux-cifs-client] lstat always reporting nlink of 1

[Hein-Pieter van Braam]

hi all!

I've been experimenting with using a samba share as a homedirectory for a 
linux workstation, with nfs security being what it is etc, it seemed the best 
solution for now. This is a production network, and I don't want anyone with 
a knoppix cd and some patience to be able to connect to my user's home 
directories :) nfsv4 with kerberos suppor is to painful at this point, and 
isn't quite ready for prima-time... 

Well, chaos ensued after I got pam_mount to run, mozilla wouldn't run, kde 
wouldn't start etc. This was rather frustrating. So I checked all the 
settings for my samba server and confirmed that, everything should be in 
order. and I can do whatever I want on this share as if it was a "real" 
unix-like filesystem (ln, mkfifo mknod etc)

I've tracked this down to (what seems to be) one single problem: an lstat() on 
a smb/cifs mounted volume will always give an nlink value of 1 weither or not 
there are links to that file or not.

This is significant because kde for instance uses the nlink value to determine 
weither or not a lockfile is stale or something, I don't quite understand why 
it does what it does, but I do understand what it does. 

If someone wants to check the code out, its in kdelibs/kdecore/klockfile.cpp 
around line 144 (KLockFile::LockResult deleteStaleLock)

because the nlink value is 1 and kde expects it to be (rightly so) 2 or more, 
kde won't start, and according to a bunch of straces I did on mozilla it does 
the same thing.

I would really appreciate it if someone could tell me weither this problem is 
because of the cifs client or samba itself. Some pointers as to where to 
begin fixing this would be nice too!

thanks in advance!

Hein-Pieter van Braam.

PS: I have confirmed this behaviour with a very simple php script (was the 
fastest thing I could dream up at that moment) and that shows the same 
output.