[Samba] Deletion of directory symlink via Samba deletes files in original subdirectory on Unix

[Jeremy Allison]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 08:45:56PM -0500, Andy Liebman wrote:
> Jeremy Allison wrote:
> >On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 04:24:13PM -0800, Kathy wrote:
> >>Hello --
> >>
> >>We have a Solaris 10 ZFS server running Samba with "follow
> >>symlinks=yes" set.  We're noticing that if you delete (via Samba) a
> >>file that is a symbolic link pointing to a subdirectory somewhere,
> >>with files in that subdir, it will not only delete the symbolic link
> >>file, but also delete the files in the target subdirectory.  On Unix,
> >>if you delete a symbolic link, it will leave the original target
> >>subdir (and its files) untouched.  This behavior only seems to happen
> >>if the symlink is pointing to a populated subdirectory.  If you have a
> >>symlink that points to a file and delete the symlink via Samba, the
> >>original file remains intact.  Does anyone know of a way to get around
> >>this particular behavior?  We would like it to behave as in Unix.
> >>Only the symlink gets deleted and not the subdir/files it was pointing
> >>at.
> >
> >What version of Samba ?
> >
> >Jeremy
> This sounds a bit like the problem we (EditShare) discovered and
> that  you patched a few years ago-- in the 3.0.14 days I think.
> Remember... We discovered a sort of delayed reaction.  If you
> deleted a symlink to a file that some other user had open, when both
> users finally closed the file the FILE would get deleted rather than
> the SYMLINK.
> 
> Could it be related?

Maybe, it could *be* that problem, if the version they're running
is old enough (which is why I asked :-).

Jeremy.