[Samba] transfer to Microsoft Distributed File Service

[Xu, Qiang (FXSGSC)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: samba-bounces at lists.samba.org 
> [mailto:samba-bounces at lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of Xu, Qiang (FXSGSC)
> Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 12:49 PM
> To: samba at lists.samba.org
> Subject: [Samba] transfer to Microsoft Distributed File Service
> 
> Hi, list: 
> 
> Usually, "//server_name/share" is passed to smbclient to do a 
> transfer. However, in case of filing repositores using MS 
> DFS, can smbclient be passed 
> "//domain_name/dfs_share/share_link"? I guess not.

In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_File_System_(Microsoft), I read:
---
Traditional file shares, associated with a single server, have SMB paths of the form \\<SERVER>\<path>\<subpath>. Domain-based DFS file share paths are distinguished by using the domain name in place of the server name, in the form \\<DOMAIN.NAME>\<dfsroot>\<path>. When a user access such a share, either directly or by mapping a drive, their computer will access one of the available servers associated with that share, following rules which can be configured by the network administrator. For example, the default behavior is that users will access the closest server to them; but this can be overridden to prefer a particular server.
---
It should be an improvement, but I have some problems in using it.

For example, in my testing, I am using a DFS path is \\XCTEST\DFS_Share\DFS_LNK_OCEANUS (mapped to \\OCEANUS\DFS_Share_Oceanus). XCTEST is a domain name, while OCEANUS is a valid hostname in that domain.

In Windows XP command-line, I typed "net use \\XCTEST\DFS_Share\DFS_LNK_OCEANUS" and "net use \\OCEANUS\DFS_Share_Oceanus", both succeeded. However, in our printer, if I configure the transfer path to \\XCTEST\DFS_Share\DFS_LNK_OCEANUS, the file transfer will fail.

When the transfer path is set to \\OCEANUS\DFS_Share_Oceanus, the config file reads:
---
[global]

	interfaces = 13.198.98.118/20
	default service = 13.198.97.17 /* IP Address resolved from the hostname OCEANUS */
	path = /DFS_Share_Oceanus
---
It looks perfect.

In contrast, when the transfer path is set to \\XCTEST\DFS_Share\DFS_LNK_OCEANUS, the config file reads:
---
[global]

	interfaces = 13.198.98.118/20
	default service = XCTEST
	path = /DFS_Share
---
The share path behind DFS_Share (namely, DFS_LNK_OCEANUS) doesn't appear in the config file. Is it the reason smbclient failed? I think smbclient should be supporting DFS configurations, right?

Looking forward to help,
Xu Qiang