smbclient --max-protocol=NT1: why it requres setting MIN protocol too?

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Tue, 2022-10-25 at 18:45 +0300, Michael Tokarev via samba-technical
wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> When trying to use current smbclient to connect to, say, a windowsXP machine
> (which implements only NT1 protocol), smbclient has to be told to use lower
> protocol version than it's default - this is intended.
> 
> But the thing is that it doesn't work:
> 
>    $ smbclient --max-protocol=NT1 //testhost/share
>    Unable to initialize messaging context
>    protocol negotiation failed: NT_STATUS_INVALID_PARAMETER_MIX
> 
> Using -m/--max-protocol=NT1 *also* requires setting another option:
> 
>    $ smbclient --max-protocol=NT1 --option='client min protocol = CORE' //testhost/share
> 
> This way it actually works.
> 
> Can't smbclient either warn about this situation, or better yet,
> lower its min protocol automatically if it is greater than
> the requested max protocol?

That seems like a very reasonable request.

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett (he/him) https://samba.org/~abartlet/
Samba Team Member (since 2001) https://samba.org
Samba Developer, Catalyst IT https://catalyst.net.nz/services/samba