[linux-cifs-client] Re: soft links behaviour

[Steve French]

> Problem is that, because CIFS now have soft links we can't access the
> file anymore when my local filesystem is not in sync with the server's.
>
> Setting the old behaviour back in the server is not an option and I'd
> like to control from the client which mount point will follow symlinks
> and which won't.

There are two ways to do this on the client (without changing the
server's smb.conf file):

1) Before you mount to the server from this client you could disable
the Unix Extensions (by "echo 0 >
/proc/fs/cifs/LinuxExtensionsEnabled") so the Linux client will look
more like a Windows client and thus get the automatic follow symlink
behavior used by the server for handling Windows clients.   You can
renable them ("echo 1 > /proc/fs/cifs/LinuxExtensionsEnabled") before
you mount to a different server if you want Unix Extensions on that
new mount (the global flag is only checked during session setup).

2) You also can specify "nounix" (or equivalently "nolinux") on the
mount command (after -o ie in the mount options).  This mount option
was added for cifs version 1.50 ("cat /proc/fs/cifs/DebugData" to see
the version of your cifs client).   This mount option disables the use
of the Unix Extensions for that mount, and is probably the better
solution for your situation.

-- 
Thanks,

Steve