DESKTOP.INI amd & DNS puzzle

[Darrin M. Gorski]

Are you sure that Samba is the one looking for the same file multiple
times, or is it the client? In my PCNFS example, it was the client who
would request that file, multiple times in the same directory. The server
was just doing it's job and trying to find them.

                                [Darrin]
--
"I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious." - A. Einstein

Darrin M. Gorski, Research Computer Systems Network Support
Scientific Research Laboratories, Ford Motor Company
Internet: dgorski at ford.com | Tel/Fax: +1 (313) 248-3753


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)
>