FILE: and NE??: files

Andy Bakun abakun at reac.com
Thu Jun 3 19:49:02 GMT 1999


In my environment, we print to files a lot in order to post processing
before actually sending the output to the printer, and there have been an
increasing number of instances where files named FILE: or NE??: (where ??
is a two digit number corresponding to the "network port" that the printer
used to print to file is on) are being generated.  Note that my WinNT4Sp4
clients always display these files with the 8.3 mangled names (because you
can't have a : in a filename in windows, I suspect).  These files are
either zero bytes long, or actually contain printer output.  Unfortunately,
my users don't know what makes these files and if the file actually
contains something, they just notice that the file they meant to generate
doesn't exist and try again.  This doesn't happen with every print job, but
it does happen.

Anyway, while poking around looking for hints as to my previous message
about the duplicate 8.3 entries in the same directory, I happened across
the function is_reserved_msdos in smbd/mangle.c.  Would adding entries to
the switch for FILE: and filenames of the form NE??: (where ?? are digits)
get rid of this?  I figure that the client printer driver is opening a file
named FILE:, which is susposed to be caught by the filesystem subsystem in
NT but which is somehow getting past that and being sent to samba, which
happily creates the file which is susposed to name a port on the local
machine.  Anyone know about this or have any references?  I can write the
patch if someone else agrees that what I described is the right thing to
do.

Andy.




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