msdfs, win98 / NT and non-resolvable symlink paths

[Esh, Andrew]

If you'll allow me to do some guesswork ...

It looks like the same problem is being addressed in the samba-technical
thread "Re: WIN98 Can't access some directories - ???", and the solution
there seems to be the smb.conf setting "case sensitive = No".

I wonder why this is specific to msdfs links? Maybe the link resolution code
assumes case insensitivity, and upcases the link name for comparison? Maybe
MS is changing the case in some of its references in the network requests?
Here are some interesting log entries posted by Arjen van Drie:

(First the link is lower case) ...
[2002/01/30 11:12:59, 5] msdfs/msdfs.c:is_msdfs_link(185)
  is_msdfs_link: /home/samba/dfsroot-aiv/pcsupport ->
msdfs:ls-aiv-03\pcsupp-aiv

(now it's upper case) ...
[2002/01/30 11:12:59, 4] msdfs/msdfs.c:resolve_dfs_path(257)
  resolve_dfs_path: Redirecting \LS-AIV-03\SHARED-AIV\PCSUPPORT\*
because
parent /home/samba/dfsroot-aiv/pcsupport is dfs link
[2002/01/30 11:12:59, 3] msdfs/msdfs.c:dfs_redirect(309)
  dfs_redirect: Redirecting \LS-AIV-03\SHARED-AIV\PCSUPPORT\*

(and the error)
[2002/01/30 11:12:59, 3] smbd/error.c:error_packet(99)
  error string = No such file or directory

Maybe the name comparison is failing because the case doesn't match.

I am not convinced that turning off case checking is the real fix. Some
users may need to leave case sensitivity turned on. That should not cost
them the ability to use msdfs links.

It's a good data point though.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Carter [mailto:jerry at samba.org]
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 8:11 AM
To: Arjen van Drie
Cc: samba-technical at lists.samba.org; johan.coenen at aiv.kuleuven.ac.be
Subject: Re: msdfs, win98 / NT and non-resolvable symlink paths


On 14 Feb 2002, Arjen van Drie wrote:

> Problem exists with Samba 2.2.2 and 2.2.3a. Tested on RedHat Linux 7.1
>
> == Problem. ==
> 
> Where Windows2000 clients do, win98 and NT clients do not follow a msdfs
> link. When we open Windows Eplorer, doubleclick on a mounted SMB network
> share and click on one of the maps therein on the _left_ side of Windows
> Explorer, the right side shows up empty. There are files though. From
> then on, no matter what route we take to get to the share, the files
> remain invisible.

We need to figure out why it works for me and why not for you.
Shirish?  Any ideas?






jerry
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