Problem: permissions for removing a file in a file system mounte d by smbmount

[Heribert Schütz]

Hi,

I have got a problem with the semantics of file permissions on a file system
mounted by smbmount on a Linux box (kernel 2.2.14, Samba 2.0.6, and after
looking through the 2.0.7 announcement, it appears that the problem has not
been addressed there).

Consider the following case: I mount a share from an NT server on a Linux
box, which I then use at the Linux box. I create a file on that partition
and remove its write permissions. This happens whithin a directory which
does have write permission. When I now want to remove the file, it does not
work, but I rather get an error message that I don't have the permission for
that. (When I set write permissions for the file again, then I can remove
the file.)

I think this is not consistent with the usual UNIX behaviour, where I can
remove a file (at least with "rm -f") whenever I have write permission for
the *directory* containing the file. I do not need write permission for the
file itself.

All of this would not be a problem if I just wanted to remove some file by
hand. But there are programs that appear to rely on the UNIX behaviour. (In
my case it is CVS. I want to put a CVS repository on the smbmount'ed file
system, because regular backups are done for the NT server.)

Is there a solution for this problem by appropriate configuration? (But I
did not find anything about this in the smbmount man page.) Or should the
behaviour of smbmount be modified? Do you know a work-around?

Best regards, and many thanks for providing Samba,

Heribert Schütz.