l*xattr functions (was: Re: VFS change needed for 4.1.0 and above.)

[Jeremy Allison]

On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 06:14:06PM +1200, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> 
> Are you sure?  I thought I removed them for 4.0 as unused, eg:
> 
> commit 19eee33d82b4c1947b646241b6f22651abbce19d
> Author: Andrew Bartlett <abartlet at samba.org>
> Date:   Wed Apr 4 08:46:25 2012 +1000
> 
>     s3-vfs: Remove unused lremovexattr call from VFS modules, system.c
> and configure
>     
>     If this is ever needed again, it would be more appropriate as an
> options argument
>     to removexattr.

Ah bugger :-). Yeag, we do need them.

> I'll be glad to review the patch, but do consider if it would be best as
> an options argument, as some platforms use, rather than a distinct call
> that needs to be implemented everywhere.  

No, they need to be a separate VFS call, and the calling code must
cope with ENOSYS. It's to do with the UNIX extensions (look at
the STAT/LSTAT differences in the fileserver).

> (It was removed, from memory because extended attributes on links don't
> exist on Linux, and my motivation would have been around avoiding having
> to address emulating them in the xattr_tdb layer, for the as-then unused
> codepaths. )

Actually I think they do exist (EA's on symlinks) on Linux (and Irix).
They don't exist on Solaris. But I'll write test code up the wazoo before
I actually change anything, so don't worry too much. If I'm wrong we'll
just be able to ignore this mail thread :-).

Cheers,

Jeremy.