MS Excel/NT/Samba timestamp - serious problem, bug?

[Todd Pfaff]

Jeremy,

Do you think that this timestamp issue could be the cause of the problems
I recently reported with MS Office applications on NT workstations when
sharing office documents  amongst a group of users on a samba-2.0.6 share?
(ie. various problems with documents being unreadable/unwriteable by users
in a group even though the unix permissions and share permissions should
allow all the users to read and write)?

I haven't gone to any effort to make sure all the nt workstations are time
synched with the samba server.  Maybe this is a necessity.  What is the
easiest way to accomplish this?  Is it as simple as setting 'time server =
yes', giving all nt users the right to set the time, and putting a 'net
time' command in the nt logon batch file?

I haven't found any other solution to my problems, so I guess I'll try the
patch.

On Tue, 25 Jan 2000, Jeremy Allison wrote:

> Glen Gunsalus wrote:
> > 
> > A rather distressing timestamp issue (to multiple users here).  Anyone
> > seen similar behavior or have a suggestion/solution?
> > 
> > Problem:
> > 
> > Opening and closing an excel file (no changes/keystrokes to file) on
> > the Samba server causes the file to be saved with time stamp of
> > closing.  (There is no autosave set on Excel - also see other info below)
> 
> Can you try the following patch to 2.0.6 (this will be in
> 2.0.7) and report if it fixes your problem.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> 	Jeremy Allison,
> 	Samba Team.
> 
> -------------------cut here---------------------------------
> --- /home/jeremy/tmp/samba-2.0.6/source/smbd/trans2.c   Wed Nov 10 18:36:11 1999
> +++ smbd/trans2.c   Tue Dec 21 11:10:31 1999
> @@ -1694,14 +1694,25 @@
> 
>      case SMB_SET_FILE_BASIC_INFO:
>      {
> +      /* Patch to do this correctly from Paul Eggert <eggert at twinsun.com>. */
> +      time_t write_time;
> +      time_t changed_time;
> +
>        /* Ignore create time at offset pdata. */
> 
>        /* access time */
>        tvs.actime = interpret_long_date(pdata+8);
> 
> -      /* write time + changed time, combined. */
> -      tvs.modtime=MIN(interpret_long_date(pdata+16),
> -                      interpret_long_date(pdata+24));
> +      write_time = interpret_long_date(pdata+16);
> +      changed_time = interpret_long_date(pdata+24);
> +
> +      tvs.modtime = MIN(write_time, changed_time);
> +
> +      /* Prefer a defined time to an undefined one. */
> +      if (tvs.modtime == (time_t)0 || tvs.modtime == (time_t)-1)
> +       tvs.modtime = (write_time == (time_t)0 || write_time == (time_t)-1
> +                      ? changed_time
> +                      : write_time);
> 
>  #if 0 /* Needs more testing... */
>        /* Test from Luke to prevent Win95 from
> -------------------cut here---------------------------------
> 
> -- 
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Buying an operating system without source is like buying
> a self-assembly Space Shuttle with no instructions.
> --------------------------------------------------------
> 

--
Todd Pfaff                         \  Email: pfaff at mcmaster.ca
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