"server mode" request for comments

David Collier-Brown David.Collier-Brown at canada.sun.com
Tue Jun 6 12:23:41 GMT 2000


"Cole, Timothy D." wrote:

> I'm starting to wonder if a "server mode" paramter in smb.conf might not be
> appropriate, with one of two settings...

	Setting many defaults with one command is cool, 
	but changing the current defaults isn't.

	If an option looks like it would change when
	server mode = unix, we can do three things

	1) decide it's not a filesystem-specific thing and
	   not include it in the list
	2) decide it is, but should be supported in unix, or
	3) decide to stop supporting it in unix.

	In the last message, I listed everything that
	might change.  It was a lot, so perhaps we
	want a "narrower" name, like 
		filesystem semantics = Unix | FAT | NTFS
	


	Phasing this in, however, isn't as hard as you'd
	expect: it's a solved problem in linkers and loaders.

	To oversimplify:

	1) in version x.y, introduce the option but have
	it default to doing nothing. Produce a warning 
	if it is not set, so users can set it,
	and tell them how to set it and what other options
	they need to set so they get the former behavior of
	mixed unix and windows semantics.
	
	2) in version x.y+1, fail if it is not set to
	something. 

	[This usually takes about 5 steps, as you're 
	normally phasing out old options at the same
	time. That's a rant for another day.]

--dave
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | Always do right. This will gratify some people
185 Ellerslie Ave.,   | and astonish the rest.        -- Mark Twain
Willowdale, Ontario   | //www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/author.html
Work: (905) 415-2849 Home: (416) 223-8968 Email: davecb at canada.sun.com


More information about the samba-technical mailing list