Architcecture for winbindd client character conversion.

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 09:08:19AM -0400, simo wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-08-29 at 13:44 +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 08:22:00AM -0400, simo wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2007-08-29 at 07:41 +0200, Christian Perrier wrote:
> > > > So, an *old* Ubuntu system could be non UTF-8 by default if it just
> > > > has been upgraded since installed, but a new one is UTF-8 by default.

> > > Yes, it ended up we were talking of an old system. In any case it was
> > > just an example, the logic is that if a distribution does not use utf8
> > > it should also change unix charset to match the user environment and the
> > > locale files are written down into.

> > It's already moderately fiddly for OS installers to set the locale in
> > all the right places; the fewer configuration files that need to be
> > changed to match (and hence potentially get out of sync later) the
> > better. Is there no way this can be detected from the locale instead,
> > assuming that the init script that starts samba arranges for samba to be
> > started with the system default locale?

> Yes you may think of using "unix charset = LOCALE" in your default
> smb.conf file, but beware of root users running smbd by hand in a
> different locale.

I would like to stress this caveat; if there's any possibility at all that a
user will be able to change the "system default locale" for a system after
install, then having samba automatically change its unix charset at the same
time and thereby change how it interprets filenames will break the reading
of any non-ascii filenames already on the system.

In addition, 'unix charset' affects how not just the server, but also the
client interacts with the local filesystem; and of course users running the
client will be doing so with their own locale settings, regardless of what
steps might be taken to ensure a consistent system default locale.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon at debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/