[Samba] Samba 3.2.0 - OS/2 divorced from connectivity

[Günter Kukkukk]

Am Dienstag, 1. Juli 2008 schrieb Felix Miata:
> On 2008/07/01 17:59 (GMT+0200) Karolin Seeger apparently typed:
> 
> > , smbmount has
> > been removed in this Samba version. Please use cifs (mount.cifs) instead.
> > See examples/scripts/mount/mount.smbfs as an example for a wrapper which
> > calls mount.cifs instead of smbmount/mount.smbfs.
> 
> When was the last timestamp bug quashed? If it has not in fact been quashed,
> then there is NO usable connectivity with OS/2 as of this release.
> -- 
> "Where were you when I laid the earth's
> foundation?"		       Matthew 7:12 NIV
> 
>  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
> 
> Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

unfortunately the samba 3.2.x release notes are unclear here when stating 
  "As smbfs is no longer supported in current kernel versions ..."

Even in the most recent linux kernel 2.6.25 smbfs is still supported.

There are very recent discussions on the Linux Kernel Mailing List 
(LKML) _how_ to drop smbfs "in an acceptable and save manner".
It seems to me, that the involved kernel developers would like to choose
a way "to more and more put _heavy_ warning messages into the kernel log"
about the end of smbfs.

So today the kernel developers "are a bit unsure" how to go on.

Most linux distribution maintainers had and have a much clearer
view of "this upcoming disaster" - hundreds or thousands of smbfs bug
reports had been accumulated in their bug-databases - and "they found
no way TO JUST IGNORE THEM" - cause smbfs is no longer maintained...

They have been told "to just use cifs vfs instead of smbfs" - but both
kernel modules do not match properly!
Unfortunately they even developed wrappers around "smbmount" and friends
to fake the change from smbfs to cifs vfs - to me a really worst decision.
(do those maintainers ever join the irc channel #samba ?)

To me (the samba supplied applets)
  - smbmount
  - smbmnt
  - smbumount
were _always_ related to smbfs, and 
  - mount.cifs
  - umount.cifs
are related to cifs vfs.

Those newly created wrappers "just only add more confusion"!
(you buy a samba-CD at Ebay (R) and get the bill from Amazon (R)) ?

Why drop smbfs?
  - put force on cifs vfs to support similar features - and more...
  - put force on NAS suppliers to adopt to new cifs vfs client features
  - ...
  - due to internal kernel changes, unmaintained smbfs will not build anymore

The loosers now - all the smb/cifs users, running a legacy server.
(cifs vfs != smbfs)

I always voted against removing the samba smbfs client applets atm - 
they were always simply to maintain...

To me, just a mistake.
Cheers, Günter