[Samba] ACL support in Samba

[David Brodbeck]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bradley W. Langhorst [mailto:brad at langhorst.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 9:38 AM
> To: Christopher Barry
> Cc: samba at lists.samba.org
> Subject: Re: [Samba] ACL support in Samba
> 
> 
> On Fri, 2002-10-25 at 10:00, Christopher Barry wrote:
> 
> 
> > What (in hopefully many opinions) is the best ACL supporting fs for
> > Linux?
> 
> the options are  (i think)
> ext3 + patches from bestbits
> ext2 + patches
> xfs
> 
> xfs in my hands has been much more reliable and faster

ext3 + patches or ext2 + patches work fine too, and are a nice option if
you're looking to add ACLs to an existing filesystem.  They also have a
distinct advantage from my point of view -- they can be mounted as ordinary
ext2 filesystems.  This means, in a pinch, you can use ordinary rescue disks
and recovery tools.

I have nothing against XFS, though I haven't used it.  Just presenting my
own perspective.

ext2 and ext3 ACLs do have the disadvantage that the on-disk format and in
some cases the kernel interface is a moving target.  Generally this hasn't
been a problem for me, but it does mean you have to be careful if you
upgrade to a newer version.  Depending on the release number you sometimes
have to use getfacl and setfacl to backup and then restore your ACLs (if the
on-disk format has changed).  The setfacl part of this procedure, in
particular, can be time-consuming for big filesystems, especially if you use
winbindd -- it took a few hours, last time I did it.  Generally you want to
be backing up the ACLs to flat files periodically anyway, since there aren't
currently many backup tools that understand ACLs.

If you're looking for an ACL-enabled filesystem that's built into a
distribution, XFS is currently your only choice.  If you want to use ext2 or
ext3 ACL patches you'll need to patch and compile your own kernel and
filesystem tools.