[Samba] WinNT offline file attribute

[John E. Malmberg]

Damir Dezeljin wrote:
>>Also has anyone verified how a Windows 2000 system (The first to admit 
>>support for the offline bit) uses this information?
> 
> WinNT sp6a, Win2k, WinXP, Win.Net* suport file offline attribute. The only 
> thing that windows (explorer) do is that them don't try to open the file 
> to get an file icon or any other data (ex. MS Word files informations).
> 
> The shared folders with offline files works the sam way (a client know of 
> offline attribute set and don't try to open any offline file).
> 
> The easiest solution will be to define an entire share (in smb.conf) to be 
> offline - to export offline file attribute for all files. This aproach 
> doesn't causes any overhead for calling ioctl or something similar (ex. 
> check for an offline extended attribute).

Yes, making an entire share have the shelved attribute is easy, but it 
does not make sure that the client will honor it.

Does Windows NT/2000 do any tests when serving shelved files, or does it 
just assume that the client will do the right thing?

The PRE-Microsoft shelving or HSM products used a client resident 
application to request files to be unshelved.  Protocol of the request 
is propriety to the product.

But to Repeat:

The SMBD process must not make files with the offline attribute visible 
to clients that do not support it.  This means that SMBD must find out 
that information somehow.

Until this issue is solved, it is not save to serve shelved files.

-John
wb8yw at qsl.network
Personal Opinion Only