[Samba] Re: symbolic link problem

[Tobias Bluhm]

> 
> Tobias Bluhm <tobias.bluhm <at> philips.com> writes:
> 
> > 
> > Jeremy wrote on 06/29/2005 05:38:11 AM:
> > 
> > >  Hi All,
> > > 
> > >         I'm having some annoying problems with symbolic links. I'm 
not
> > >         certain they relate to samba but hopefully sone here can 
help
> > >         anyway.
> > > 
> > >        I have a linux ( Mandrake 10.1 ) machine sharing various 
> > directories
> > >        ( samba 3.0.7 ) with a network of linux ( also MDK 10.1 ) and 

> > windows
> > >        machines.
> > > 
> > >        Within the shared directories are a number of symbolic links 
to
> > >        files both inside and outside the shared directory ( follow 
> > symlinks
> > >        and wide links are both set to yes )
> > > 
> > >        accessing these directories from a windows client all is 
wellbut, 
> > when
> > >        I try to access them from Linux, the symbolic links do not 
work.
> > >        After an hour or two of confusion I realised that it is 
looking 
> > for the
> > >        linked directory on the client machine rather than the 
server.
> > > 
> > >        So for example ,on the client, when in directory 
> > /mnt/server1/dir1
> > >        there is a symlink to a directory on server1 ( ln -s 
/home/fred 
> > fred ).
> > >        if I do 'cd fred' it fails because /home/fred does not exist 
on 
> > the
> > >        client.
> > 
> > You've described your problem right there - linux clients have no 
access 
> > to server:/home. If client:/home is empty and not used for local 
client 
> > storage and you deem server:/home is okay for everyone to access on 
the 
> > clients, nfs mount server:/home on client:/home.
> > 
> > What I've found to be easy on the users is to map the smb share to 
drive 
> > X:, then make an automount point /X on the linux boxes that mounts the 

> > same stuff. This way, "X" represents the same data to windows & linux 
> > users. Soft links & automount maps fill in any complicated directory 
> > schemes. 
> > 
> > -----------------------------------------------------
> > toby bluhm
> > philips medical systems, cleveland ohio
> > tobias.bluhm <at> philips.com
> > 440-483-5323
> 
> 
>  Hi,
> 
>    Maybe I confused the issue by not specifying the real paths.
>    The symbolic links I am using are not actually to anything under
>    /home, most are to external scsi disks under /mnt
> 
>    I need these external disks to be visible from a number of
>    other servers.

Where are these external disks? All on the smb server? Sprinkled out among 
the linux clients? Other servers? 

Are these all discrete disk partitions? Why not scoop them all up into a 
raid or lvm setup? Then you would have a single share/mount ( and backup ) 
point.

> 
>    As for setting up nfs in the way described I was wondering 
>    whether something like that was required. The only strange
>    thing is that symlinks on an old debian server we have here
>    work exactly as I want them too, but I can't seem to find out
>    what it is that makes them work ( NFS does not seem to be 
>    set up on the debian ).
> 



-toby