[cifs-protocol] SMB1 -- proper client behavior when it does not hold an oplock

Sreekanth Nadendla srenaden at microsoft.com
Fri Apr 27 16:13:15 MDT 2012


Hello Jeff,
                Thank you for your inquiry about File sharing protocols. One of the Open specifications team member will contact you soon.

Regards,
Sreekanth Nadendla
Microsoft Windows Open Specifications


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Layton [mailto:jlayton at poochiereds.net] On Behalf Of Jeff Layton
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 2:34 PM
To: pfif at tridgell.net; cifs-protocol at samba.org; Interoperability Documentation Help
Cc: smfrench at gmail.com; crh at samba.org
Subject: SMB1 -- proper client behavior when it does not hold an oplock

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Sorry for the duplicate emails, but I sent this to the wrong dochelp address before. Let me try again...

Hi Dochelp!

I'm hoping you can help clarify some points about proper SMB1 (and maybe SMB2?) client behavior when it does not hold an oplock (at least one that allows write caching).

My understanding has always been that when a client does not have an oplock that allows write caching, then it should not cache any writes
- -- full stop. If an application does a write then the kernel should not return until it has been sent to the server and the reply has come back. That behavior is at least suggested in MS-CIFS, though it does not come out and state that explicitly.

OTOH, Steve French suggested that that's not required by the protocol and that clients are allowed to buffer up writes "briefly" in order to allow the redirector to batch up small writes into a single request as long as it flushes them out in a timely fashion. That seems a little crazy to me, but I guess it's not the craziest thing in SMB1 if so...

So I guess my questions are:

1) What does the protocol actually mandate? Are you allowed to briefly buffer up writes before returning to an application when the client holds no oplock?

2) What does Windows actually do in this regard? If you are not allowed to do that by the protocol, then does it follow this strictly or does it do as Steve suggests and batch up small writes until it can fill a write request?

Thanks for any info you can provide!
- --
Jeff Layton <jlayton at samba.org>
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