[Samba] hardlink unlink-before-save?

[Linda W]

Bartosz Stec wrote:
> Hello list
> 
> On my server almost half of files are duplicated, and there are almost 
> 100GB of data which is growing fast. I'm using weekly script to find 
> duplicated files and replace them with hardlinks. Everything is fine as 
> long as users aren't trying to edit and save some documents which have 
> hardlinks. With samba 3.3 it seems that hardlinks aren't unlinked before 
> file is saved.
> Is there any way to force samba to unlink file before write?
---

Wouldn't that be a function of the application program?

Some applications do similar to that -- like a rename & create (where the 
old file will be around as a backup).  But some applications may try
to modify the file in-place.  It depends on the application.

You might be able to force the issue by changing the 
permissions/ownership on the linux server to a '3rd party' login and
set other permissions to read-only.  Then anyone who wants to write 
would have to delete the copy that is there (or rename it).