DESKTOP.INI amd & DNS puzzle

Todd Pfaff pfaff at edge.cis.McMaster.CA
Sat Jun 12 02:36:17 GMT 1999


Since it's only looking in /net and /proc, it appears as if it's looking
for desktop.ini in the root of all mount points within the the attached
share.  Try this experiment: mount some filesystem on /mnt and I'll bet it
looks there for desktop.ini also.

Questions is: why does it look in the mounted directories?  Is it samba
that is initiating this searching in mounted directories, or is it the
microsoft client telling samba to look there?  If it's the latter, what is
samba telling the microsoft client about those mount points that makes the
client want to look there and not in other directories?


On Sat, 12 Jun 1999, David A. De Graaf wrote:

> Further perusal of log files with  'debug level = 3'  seems to confirm
> that samba tries to open /DESKTOP.INI five times whenever a client
> attaches a new share, and if and only if that share is the root
> filesystem, it additionally tries /PROC/DESKTOP.INI twice and
> /NET/DESKTOP.INI twice.
> 
> Several respondents have explained the special significance that
> MicroSoft has given to that filename.  That's fine.
> Darrin says "sharing the root of a UNIX machine is bad practice"
> and I agree.  I wouldn't do that on client's system, but here it's
> just me.
> 
> But what I don't get is why samba would look so many times for the
> same filename, and only in / and in /proc and in /net.
> I could understand it if it looked in the directory that was being
> attached to the client.  But looking always in / and sometimes in
> /proc and /net seems nutty.
> 
> What's most puzzling is why and how samba changes its search from 
> /net to /n when all I did was change the place where amd does its
> automounting.  In /etc/sysconfig/amd I changed
> 	MOUNTPTS='/net /etc/amd.conf'
> to
> 	MOUNTPTS='/n /etc/amd.conf'
> and I renamed /net to /n.
> 
> With only those changes, samba then looked for /N/DESKTOP.INI
> instead of /NET/DESKTOP.INI.
> That is amazing!  How did it know?
> 
> More specifically, why does samba single out /, /proc and wherever
> amd is hanging remote files as the only places to look for
> DESKTOP.INI?   Why doesn't it look in all the other principal
> directories, eg, /bin, /boot, /dev,  ... ?
> 
> And here's another experiment:  I again changed the amd mountpoint,
> but to a second level directory:  /mnt/net
> Samba no longer looks there for DESKTOP.INI; it still does look in
> / and /proc.
> 
> So I've found two workarounds to keep client mounting from triggering 
> amd to do a false DNS lookup:
> 1)  Itemize the machines that amd will mount.  (/etc/amd.conf)
> 2)  Move amd's mount point an extra level down.  (/etc/sysconfig/amd)
> 
> I don't really like either solution.
> 
> -- 
> 	David A. De Graaf    DATIX, Inc.    Hilton Head Is., SC  
> 	degraaf at rhsnet.com       843-785-3136, -3156 (fax)
> 

--
Todd Pfaff                         \  Email: pfaff at mcmaster.ca
Computing and Information Services  \ Voice: (905) 525-9140 x22920
ABB 132                              \  FAX: (905) 528-3773
McMaster University                   \
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada  L8S 4M1     \



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