[Samba] Challenge to experts: Is archive bit so difficult?

[Bing Zhang]

I have had this problem for more than one year and have asked this same
question twice on this list without any answears for past two years. So I
assume that this question is quite difficult unless I really missed
something, :-).

We are using Samba 2.2.0 on RedHat 7.2 with domain authentication on NT 4.0
server. We are using NTbackup on a NT BDC to backup samba shares via mapped
drives. The problem is that the incremental backup is same as normal whole
backup which consumes lots of tapes. I believed this is because the backup
operator is not able to turn off the archive bit after each backup.

For the backup operator on NT side, we created an exact username on linux
with root previlige. This operator is also a samba administrator. DOS file
mode and map archive bit are both enabled. Still if I login in as backup
operator on NT box and issue attrib -a filename on a file not owned by the
operator, the operation failed. All the files belong to a group called user.
This group can read the file but do not have write right on the files not
owned by them. But since the operator is in root group, this should not
matter.

I search the archive and someone mentioned that samba 2.2.4 fixed something
to make BackupExec to work. I upgraded to samba 2.2.5, however it did not
solve my problem.

Thanks,

Bing Zhang