CIFS UNIX Extensions.

Jay Ts jay at toltec.metran.cx
Wed Jan 9 16:53:04 GMT 2002


Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> Jeremy Allison wrote:
> > 
> > I'm getting ready to add the CIFS UNIX extensions - this is code that
> > has been in HP's CIFS/9000 product and is designed to give (almost)
> > full UNIX -> UNIX semantics to CIFS (fcntl locking is still missing
> > I'm afraid).
> > 
> > Please take a look w.r.t. using these extensions in Linux smbfs,
> > as it might make the job of smbfs much easier.
> 
> This is excellent news!

If I understand correctly, then I heartily agree.  Are you saying
these extensions allow Samba servers and clients talk to each other
and support a full Unix filesystem, with permissions, owner and group,
modification times, etc.?  (I.e., "just like nfs"?) This is something
that I've been hoping would be added to Samba, as it would allow the
possiblity of working around limitations in Microsoft's networking
technology and limitations to functionality that result from protocols
that are too difficult to reverse engineer.

Recently I've been using smbfs on Linux, and it's at a stage of
development now that makes it really cool to use. I haven't seen
any bugs yet in the 2.2.2 release, and aside from the odd translations
between Windows and Unix filesystem attributes, it is essentially
transparent.  Good stuff.

One more thing I've been meaning to ask about: right now, Samba cannot
act as a Windows NT BDC, but what about adding some (open) protocol
extensions to Samba to allow Samba servers to act as a BDCs for a Samba PDC?
Would that be a good idea?  Or has it already been thought of and
dismissed?

Jay Ts
jayts at iname.com




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