File ctime/mtime update inconsistencies

Atte Peltomaki atte.peltomaki at f-secure.com
Thu Jul 17 08:45:15 GMT 2008


On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 06:41:07PM +0200, Stefan (metze) Metzmacher wrote:
> Atte Peltomaki schrieb:
> > On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 04:27:25PM +0200, Stefan (metze) Metzmacher wrote:
> >> Atte Peltomaki schrieb:
> >>> Problem: neither ctime nor mtime attributes are consistently updated
> >>> when new files are created or existing ones replaced. 
> >> The problem is that samba3 doesn't store the ctime and not filesystems
> >> doesn't have a way to set the ctime.
> >>
> > Without this implemented and on other platforms/filesystems, respecting 
> > windows clients request to preserve the mtime causes practical problems:
> 
> We know set the mtime to the current time at close, unless
> the client explicit set the mtime before on the handle.

This is exactly the problem I would like to address; since most
unix-like operating systems do not support win32 ctime, the client will
not end up getting what it requested in any case. 

I'll reiterate: it is less technically correct not to update any file
timestamps upon file creation than it is to disrespect clients request
to set mtime. 

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