Why ":" is not allowed in file names?

[Chere Zhou]

On Wednesday 30 April 2003 04:20 pm, Richard Sharpe wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Chere Zhou wrote:
> > in reply_ntcreate_and_X at nttrans.c:
> >
> >                         /*
> >                          * Check to see if this is a mac fork of some
> > kind. */
> >
> >                         if( strchr_m(fname, ':')) {
> >                                 END_PROFILE(SMBntcreateX);
> >                                 return
> > ERROR_NT(NT_STATUS_OBJECT_PATH_NOT_FOUND);
> >                         }
> >
> > I would like to know why we do not allow ":" in file names?
>
> Well, and interesting question for you is why do you want to allow colons
> in file names?

Well, we have a customer trying to restore to samba from backups they had 
like 2 years ago.  I think the colon is the problem, as the error message 
from BackupExec is "Error Writing Alternative Data Stream".  And I think that 
relates to files with ":" in the file name.

Is this a consideration of Virus and/or evil?

>
> Regards
> -----
> Richard Sharpe, rsharpe[at]ns.aus.com, rsharpe[at]samba.org,
> sharpe[at]ethereal.com, http://www.richardsharpe.com