[Samba] Samba breaking hard links - desired behaviour?

[Robert Beal]

Hi,

I'm using Samba 2:3.5.4 in Ubuntu 10.10.

I have setup a folder "dev" locally on my pc, and using "cp -alf" hard
linked that folder to folder "test".

"test" is currently shared using Samba on the network. When a file in "test"
is modified via Samba, the hard link is broken (ie the modified file is
unique to folder "test").

This works very well, as we can setup environments for testing, (ie "dev"
and "test") but they don't affect one another when modifications are made.
Before I can roll this out at work though, they want to know if that
behaviour is:

- a bug
- or as designed

The danger is, that if it is a bug, and we start using the above
functionality, when the bug gets fixed our setup will no longer work!

Does anyone know? I can't find any white papers on it.

Thanks,

Rob