CIFS extension for Unix (fwd)

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl at switchboard.net
Mon Apr 26 16:27:38 GMT 1999


_please_ can we add the unix exts?

<a href="mailto:lkcl at samba.org"   > Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  </a>
<a href="http://www.cb1.com/~lkcl"> Samba and Network Development </a>
<a href="http://samba.org"        > Samba Web site                </a>

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 13:30:58 +0200
From: Christian Starkjohann <cs at OBDEV.AT>
Reply-To: Common Internet File System <CIFS at DISCUSS.MICROSOFT.COM>
To: CIFS at DISCUSS.MICROSOFT.COM
Subject: Re: CIFS extension for Unix

Fabrice Coudert <fcoudert at IRESTE.FR> wrote:
> Does anybody have some news about the CIFS extension for Unix, the
> current state the project and its perspective.

I've started to implement these extensions in our CIFS client for Unix
(Sharity) about a year ago, but I came to the conclusion that the Unix
extensions are dead. The patches have not been integrated into the newer
versions of samba and I have not found an other server which implements them.

> [...]
>     - is there any similar patches for Samba 2 and Linux 2.2 kernel?

I don't think so. If anybody has a set of patches for Samba 2, please let me know.

>     - does Samba Team plan to support this extension in future
>       release of samba  and smbsh ?
>     - if not, do your know a way to allow individual user share on
>       unix tounix system.

In my opinion, the CIFS Unix extensions are not the best answer to the
problem for the following reasons:
  - They have to be maintained separately from the main functionality
    of CIFS (the functionality needed for Windows interoperability).
  - They are not implemented by Windows servers and clients and are therefore
    of no advantage for the majority of users.
  - They don't solve the UID/GID mapping problem without further extensions.

I think that NT's ACLs and maybe the extended attributes are a better
approach to the problem. You can model Unix access permissions without
information loss in ACLs. If samba implements ACLs on top of Unix access
permissions and a Unix client uses the same kind of mapping, file attributes
can be communicated transparently with the additional advantage that it also
works with NT servers and clients. Symbolic links could maybe be represented
as extended attributes. The ACL stuff is rather complex because it relies on
SIDs and these things, but the samba team is moving into this direction
anyway.

--
Dipl.-Ing. Christian Starkjohann
Objective Development
mailto:cs at obdev.at | http://www.obdev.at/

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