smbfs mounted file, tail -f STILL does not work

[Urban Widmark]

On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, root wrote:

> 1) start appending to a local NT file from a process running on the NT
> box (I used ping -t 127.0.0.1 > temp.txt)

Does 'ping -t 127.0.0.1 > temp.txt' really append to temp.txt? Does it not
(for each run) truncate and rewrite the file, just as tail -f on the linux
side says?

I don't have an NT-box handy, but in dosemu
% echo hej > aa
% echo hej > aa

Generates a file containing only one "hej".

% del aa
% echo hej > aa
% echo hej2 >> aa

Generates a file with "hej" and "hej2". Does > vs >> make any difference
for you?


> Also, if you append to the NT file from the linux box then tail DOES
> see the change.  Yet another also, if you break and then restart the
> appending process on NT (keeping the linux tail running) then the NT
> box reports: "The process cannot access the file because it is being
> used by another process".  Seems like there is also a locking problem
> (I tried mounting the filesystem "ro" but that did not help either).

There are locking problems with smbfs. It sort of doesn't implement
locking at all ... smbfs opens all files read-write, that may be what is
blocking access for the other process.

ro-mounts does not help, it still makes the same call to the other side.

/Urban