[Samba] Samba + NFS virtual directories question

[Joseph Loo]

I have automounts for my shares. Under windows 98 it shows the proper 
free space once you do a map. It is very similiar your part of the conf 
file.

You might need to check how your automounts are working.

Chris Knadle wrote:

>   We're using a Samba machine as an SMB <-> NFS gateway.  I.E.
>actual file shares are via nfs, and Windows clients make requests via Samba.
>
>   There are virtual directories set up on the Samba machine for automounted
>nfs shares.  (There are a number of nfs servers, and there are a couple of
>virtual directories where many of these shares show up.)  Those virtual
>directories are being shared as samba shares.  This is the only way we've
>found so far to share everything in these virtual directories easily.  (Too 
>many subdirectories to make individual shares).
>
>   The problem is that when things are shared in this way, drive mounts on
>the Windows clients show that the share has no drive space left, and 20 MB 
>total space.  This makes sense, because the directory being used for 
>automounting is a virtual directory, which has 0 bytes free.
>
>   Note: a samba share of a directory _under_ the virtual directory where
>things are automounted does not have the problem and reports the correct
>amount of free space from the nfs server.
>   User directories work fine because the CIFS homes share causes the user's 
>home directory to automatically come up as a separate share, which alleviates 
>the problem in that instance.
>
>   A "workaround" which is useful, but not perfect, is to make a new 
>directory on the local machine which is writable which contains links to the 
>subdirectories of the virtual directory where nfs automounts reside.  Sharing 
>this directory then shows the free space available on the Samba machine, 
>rather than of the nfs shares.  This alleviates the client machines being 
>shown that there are 0 bytes available for the shares.  It also requires 
>making links for every subdirectory in the automounted nfs shares, and having 
>to maintain that list.
>
>   Example for clarification purposes -
>	/drive is one of the directories used for automount nfs shares.
>	/drive/space1 is one of the directories that can be automounted
>	/drive_links is a directory of links to subdirectories under /drive,
>		and space1 is a link in this directory pointing to /drive/space1.
>      smb.conf:
>      -----------
>	<a bunch of settings I'm leaving out>
>	[drive]
>		path = /drive
>		read only = No
>	[drivelinks]
>		path = /drive_links
>		read only = No
>	[space1]
>		path = /drive/space1
>		read only = No
>
>	In this example, after mounting the drives on the client, the [drive] share 
>shows 0 bytes available, the [space1] share shows the available free space of 
>the NFS share, and [drivelinks]/space1 shows the available free space of 
>the partition on the Samba machine where the /drive_links directory resides.
>
>
>   If anyone has come across with a solution for sharing an NFS automount 
>directory that's a little more elegant than this I would really like to know.
>
>   Thanks
>
>	- Chris
>
>Chris Knadle
>cknadle at aeroflex.com
>

-- 
Joseph Loo
jloo at acm.org