What NetApp does when sharing files between Windows and UNIX

[Richard Sharpe]

Hi,

Some of us were discussion how NetApp handles file names etc, esp when 
sharing. Their on-line docs suggest that they install 8,3 names in the 
file system when an ambiguity occurs for CIFS.

I created a file foo.c and Foo.c under UNIX.

What I got under Windows was foo.c and FOO~1.C. That second name was 
persistent, because when I removed foo.c, FOO~1.C stayed around. One hopes 
that the addition of the 8,3 name is atomic when a clashing name is 
created. That also implies an ability to seach for case-insenstive name 
clashes when directory entries are added. This has interesting 
implications, I think, for a distributed file system.

Then, from the UNIX side, I created FOO~1.C. This succeeded! Under 
Windows, I got FOO~~1.C. Interesting.
 
Regards
-----
Richard Sharpe, rsharpe at ns.aus.com, rsharpe at samba.org, 
sharpe at ethereal.com