[Samba] vfs_shadow and [homes]

[James A. Dinkel]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Gasch
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 4:31 AM
> 
> hi,
> 
> thanks for your answers!!!
> we have ~500 users and currently i don´t have ambitions to work around
> this problem with symlinks. it´s not too urgent that i could not wait
> until your improvements :)
> 
> if there´s a new release please let us know so we can test it.
> 
> thanks again!
> micha
> 
> Ed Plese wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 12:35:12PM -0600, James A. Dinkel wrote:
> >>> i was able to successfully run vfs_shadow on a samba share with win xp
> >>> shadow copy client. but i think it?s currently not implemented that
> one
> >>> could export [homes] with this vfs object, because AFAIK each @GMT-
> snap
> >>> has to resist directly under the samba share. but [homes] is a virtual
> >>> share representing different shares (depending on users).
> >>>
> >>> has anybody hints about using vfs_shadow with [homes]?
> >
> >> I would like to find a good answer to this myself.  For now, my
> solution has been to share the root of all the homes shares and give
> access to administrators only.  For instance, all my homes are under
> /export/homes/ and then a folder for each user.  I share the /export/homes
> folder and there is a @GMT- symlink in there to the snapshot.  This way at
> least administrators can access that share and use the Previous Versions
> Client to retrieve files.
> >>
> >> My solution does not allow users to retrieve their own files though,
> which I would like for it to do.
> >
> > As it is now, you can get this to work by creating symlinks to the
> > snapshots under each user's home directory.  So for each snapshot and
> > user do something like:
> >
> > # ls -s /mnt/snapshots/snap1/user1 /home/user1/@GMT-2003.08.05-12.00.00
> >
> > This gets a bit cumbersome with large numbers of users and snapshots.
> > I've working on some enhancements to the shadow_copy module to address
> > this.
> >
> >
> > Ed Plese
> 
> --
> Michael Gasch

Yeah, I'll be anxiously awaiting your improvements, too.  We also have about 500 users and creating all those symlinks, plus keeping on top of creating the symlinks for new users would be impossible.  All those symlinks would also need to added to my snapshot scripts.

I might also mention, there is a problem with shadow_copy when mapping a drive to a subfolder of the share...  You must create symlinks in the subfolders, which has been doable for our commonly used drive mappings, but it's cumbersome.  A more elegant solution would be appreciated :)

James