what is the difference between smbmount and smbmnt?

[Steven French]

> Question: Why are smbmount and smbmnt two separate programs? 
> Couldn't all of these tasks been handled more efficiently 
> without the extra exec()?

I doubt that it makes much difference. 

I did think about how large the smbfs user space code was getting and 
whether there were efficiency issues in the kernel/user transitions (e.g. 
when I added signing code in kernel rather than putting it in user space) 
when I made the replacement cifs vfs and so created a relatively small, 
single mount daemon (mount.cifs) which did not static link in lots, and 
which relied more on kernel code, instead of the smbmount/smbmnt/smbumount 
(which on my system are over 1/2 a MB each),  I doubt that the exec itself 
is particularly slow though.


Steve French
Senior Software Engineer
Linux Technology Center - IBM Austin
phone: 512-838-2294
email: sfrench at-sign us dot ibm dot com