Some linux-cifs-client ideas

[Anthony Liguori]

On Mon, 2004-08-23 at 14:35, Juan Lang wrote:
> This is probably somewhat OT, but:
> 
> Anthony wrote:
> > In Windows, at least, network neighborhood is
> > implemented through a shell extension.  It's not a
> > real file system (AFAIK) as far as non shell-aware
> > applications are concerned.
> 
> Not entirely true.  The workgroup, server, and share
> browsing are done through a shell extension, but when
> opening a file or directory, NtCreateFile (and its
> Win32 equivalent, CreateFile) can handle UNC path
> names.  The parameters to NtCreateFile map really
> easily to the NT_CREATE_ANDX SMB, in fact.

My understanding is that portions of the UNC path name are handled in
different SMBs.  Namely the username is sent during the SessionSetupAndX
and the path (\\host\share) are sent during the TreeConnectAndX.  I'm
sure there's a bunch of other ways to do it.  I'm not aware of a single
SMB that will take all that information in an open (although it wouldn't
surprise me).

What I was actually referring to though was that there's no Win32 file
system API that will allow you to enumerate the shares or hosts in a
network.  For instance, you cannot open say C:\shares to see the list of
available shares.  Instead this is a virtual concept in the windows
shell.

I'm suggesting that since this is already done as a part of gnome-vfs
perhaps it's better not to add it to the kernel.  Just my .02 cents...

-- 
Anthony Liguori
Samba, Linux/Windows Interoperability
Linux Technology Center (LTC) - IBM Austin
E-mail: aliguori at us.ibm.com
Phone: (512) 838-1208
Tie Line: 678-1208