[Samba] Purpose of the "ea support" option?

[jrmailgate-samba at yahoo.co.uk]

Please can someone clarify the purpose of the "ea support = yes" option in smb.conf?

According to the man page, it's there to allow _clients_ to attempt to store OS/2 style extended attributes. As long as the underlying server filesystem supports EAs, this will work.

However, I've seen a number of references to setting "ea support = yes" when people just want to store DOS attributes and ACLs as extended attributes. 


Am I right in thinking this isn't actually needed in this use case? (I've not got it set and things *seem* to be working, but want to check).

Is "ea support" used by any clients apart from OS/2?

Thanks

JR