[Samba] No symlink support on SMB2 and SMB3?

[Jeremy Allison]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 10:23:15PM +0100, Markus Doits wrote:
> 
> On 23.01.15 22:16, Ralph Böhme wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 01:08:31PM -0800, Jeremy Allison wrote:
> >> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 10:05:44PM +0100, Markus Doits wrote:
> >>> On 23.01.15 19:57, Miguel Medalha wrote:
> >>>> I am using Samba 4.1.16 with smb2/3 and symbolic links are working alright.
> >>>>
> >>>> Following the smb.conf man page, I use:
> >>>>
> >>>> unix extensions = no
> >>>> wide links = yes
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> Unfortunately this still does not work for me - can you really make a
> >>> symbolic link ("ln -s ...") when you are connected with smb2/3? Does
> >>> "smbstatus" really show smb2/3 connection?
> >> No you can't - the protocol doesn't support it.
> Oh - that makes me really sad :-(
> > iirc it does, with an IO_REPARSE_TAG_SYMLINK ioctl. We just don't
> > implement it (yet). :)
> So in essence this means: Stay at NT1 if you need symlinks? (And wait
> until "IO_REPARSE_TAG_SYMLINK" is implemented?)
> 
> Just that you know: I'm trying to have home shares on the network, and
> sometimes users need symlinks (in some osx .apps or when installing some
> ruby gems). I'm using samba because it should also work with OSX.

Well there's a workaround called "Minshall/French" symlink format:

https://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2014-September/102476.html

that hides the symlink target inside a 'special' file. That
should still work over SMB2, but it's tunnelling stuff inside
the protocol, not really protocol support.

It's what the Linux CIFS client uses when it has to do
symlinks against a Windows server which doesnt' support
the UNIX extensions.