OS/2 extended attributes

[Christopher R. Hertel]

Yes, this scheme has been described dozens of times before.  The problem 
is that these stored attributes are not part of the filesystem, so they 
are not automatically handled whenever someone messes with the native OS.

That is, I can be logged on to my Unix system and move files, directories,
etc. around.  The Unix system will have *no idea* that is supposed to move
the attributes stored in the database.  This messes things up.

The way to fix this is to include these attributes in the filesystem
itself.  All access will then be done via the filesystem, and the
attributes will travel with the files.  The only problem here is that
attributes will be lost if you transfer a file to a filesystem that
doesn't support them (eg., from an NTFS filesystem to a DOS floppy). 

Chris -)-----

> There is a way that you could store attributes regardless of underlying
> filesystem.  granted it would be a long task, but once you did it you
> caould store BeOS attributes, OS/2 Attributes or any other OS'es
> attributes.
> 
> basically you take advantage of the fact the data is stored in the file,
> and the attributes aren't.
> 
> then you have a database with all of the files for a dir in it, and in
> that you store all the attributes.  or you do like Apple does, they store
> a .AppleDpuble directory, and store resource forks in there.
> 
> Either way that is a very little on how to do such a thing.
> 
> The other part is you would have to write your own client to talk to the
> server and store/retrieve these attributes.  ;)
> 
> Allen Reese
> Senior Software Engineer
> Driversoft, Inc.
> allen at driversoft.com
> 
> On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, Christopher R. Hertel wrote:
> 
> > Markus,
> > 
> > Novell owns the filesystem space on the server and can add features
> > whenever they want.  Samba runs on a wide variety of Unix platforms (and
> > other platforms too).  If I understand correctly (which would be unusual),
> > the OS/2 extended attributes are stored in the OS/2 filesystem.  In this
> > regard, Samba is at the mercy of the local filesystem.  If there is
> > nowhere to store these attributes, then we can't store them. 
> > 
> > I'm sure someone else on the list will correct me if I'm off the mark on
> > this.  I do know that there are filesystems developed or being developed 
> > for various Unix platforms which do have space for things like ACLs.  I 
> > believe that there is some work being done to allow Samba to make use of 
> > those features, if they are available.
> > 
> > Chris -)-----
> > 
> > > Hi.
> > > 
> > > Does anybody know if there are plans to store extended attributes
> > > on with smb. Since Novell has managed to do so it should be
> > > doable with samba.
> > > 
> > > I'd be interested in implementing eas if someone could give a
> > > clue where to start with.
> > > 
> > > Markus
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Christopher R. Hertel -)-----                   University of Minnesota
> > crh at nts.umn.edu              Networking and Telecommunications Services
> > 
> 


-- 
Christopher R. Hertel -)-----                   University of Minnesota
crh at nts.umn.edu              Networking and Telecommunications Services