NT4 server and the broken SetPathInfo level 257

[Steven French]

In chasing a bizarre problem to NT4 server in which server files for which
the cifs vfs changes the attributes for were getting marked delete-on-close
- I noticed that if I call level 257 SetPathInfo (FILE_BASIC_INFO) to NT4
server (setting harmless attributes, if any, such as 0x80
FILE_ATTRIBUTES_NORMAL), it fails with a not supported error - then the
file is "corrupted" (probably marked delete on close) so that it can not be
deleted locally.   Further NTCreateX, SetFileInfo, Close, SMB delete etc.
all claim to work (but the SMB delete is  a noop) - but the file is not
actually deleted and on the server trying to delete the file gets an access
denied.  Very odd.

It looks like NT4 gets partway through handling level 0x101 of SetPathInfo,
messes up the attributes, returns error not supported, then bails out.

If the same level 0x101 buffer is passed to SetFileInfo (never calling
SetPathInfo) - everything works.  If SetFileInfo is called after the
SetPathInfo (same buffer in both) - still acts weird.

Since this level works to Samba, Windows200x, etc. the trick is recognizing
servers which have the broken NT4 level 0x101 semantics - and recognizing
them early - before we actually try to send a SetPathInfo level 0x101 to it
(it is presumably too late if we wait until one of the calls fails).

Uggh.


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