Samba MSDFS and tree structure problem

[Shirish Kalele]

I can't think of a sensible reason they restrict dfs links to just two
levels besides performance. But in due course, we might find out.

One of the problems we might run into (temporarily) is if clients send or
start sending paths where a component in the middle is a dfs link. I haven't
seen such paths and so currently, Samba just assumes that only the last
component of a path requested can be a Dfs symlink.

If and when we run into this, Samba would need to parse the path component
by component and see if each one is a Dfs symlink and redirect if it is.
This again shouldn't be difficult to do.

But meanwhile, Samba does two things NT doesn't: multiple DFS roots on a
machine, and dfs links at any level under a dfs root.

Cheers,
Shirish

Michael Gerdts wrote:
> Interesting, expecially in light of:
>
>    NESTING AND EXPANDING DFS TREES
>
>    Although each particular Dfs tree is limited to two levels of volumes,
>    each volume can contain multiple levels of folders. Additionally, you
>    can create a multi-leveled tree by nesting Dfs trees inside of each
>    other. You do this by adding the root volume of one Dfs tree as a leaf
>    volume in another Dfs. Creating a multi-level tree this way is
>    transparent to users; they do not know when they have crossed from one
>    Dfs tree to another.
>
> This was found at
>
http://www.microsoft.com/NTServer/nts/downloads/winfeatures/NTSDistrFile/Adm
inGuide.asp
>
> Does this mean that Microsoft will copy the functionality offered by this
> patch or break it on their next client?  Both?
>