a proposed update

[Dave Henderson]

Hi everyone...
 
     My name is Dave Henderson.  I am working on a project that requires the use of DOS attributes.  While searching through google groups it looks like there has been issues with being able to find a good way to map these DOS attributes over to linux since Linux uses the "rwx" permissions.  This creates trouble between Windows and Linux.  I propose an addition to samba.  Instead of adjusting the actual file's linux "rwx" permissions, is it possible to create a soft link to the file and use the links group and world permission set to "store" the DOS attributes for the actual file.  These soft links need to be hidden from the browsers of the samba share.  An example of my idea is below:
 
     We have a samba server that serves Windows clients.  One of the files on the samba server is called myfile.doc.  In the updated version of samba, samba will create a hidden link file with the same name as the acutal file:
 
myfile.doc   (this is the actual file and its seen by the Windows clients to get the appropriate file size, date info, etc.)
.myfile.doc  (this is the file samba created to store the DOS attributes that get adjusted by the Windows clients.)
 
    The following linux permissions for the .myfile.doc soft link file controll the DOS attributes as follows:
 
rwx rwx rwx
      | | |  | | |
      | | |  | | ` - Files hidden attribute
      | | |  | ` - Files system attribute
      | | |  ` - Files read only attribute
      | | ` - Files archive attribute
      ` ` - Both can be used for future use
^^^
` ` ` - these three don't need to be adjusted (so the owner can delete this file in linux).
 
     Any directories created can follow this same idea.  The reason for creating the link files is because 1) there is no size increase using this update 2) it allows for added security in linux because you can keep your permissions secure on the acutal file while maintaing the DOS attributes with the link file 3) this can be applied to both files and folders (directories).
 
 
Thanks,
Dave Henderson


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