[Samba] Mac OS & Folder Timestamps

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 2:40 PM David Corrigan via samba
<samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
>
> So this issue might not strictly a Samba problem, but it happens to be
> where I found the issue and maybe there's a solution in the server or
> someone who's familiar with the problem. Basically I'm using a Pi as a
> small nas. I have a folder /media/ and a script that mounts usb drives
> there automatically. So I shared /media/ with smb.conf. Windows & Linux had
> no issue accessing the data, but Mac couldn't navigate into the folders
> that had drives mounted on them. For example '/mnt/usb drive' wouldn't
> work. I'd click the folder and it'd say "The folder can't be opened because
> you don't have permission to view it's contents". Finally opened Wireshark
> to see what the difference was between the folder with a drive mounted and
> a normal folder that I made with mkdir. Apparently all the timestamp
> information is set to 0 on the mount point folders and Mac OS just assumes
> a 0 time means it doesn't have permission to browse the folder. I manually
> set the time on the folder with touch -t and suddenly my Mac can browse
> those folders. Not sure what the proper or permanent solution is, but it's
> not an issue I would've guessed. Is the case of zeroed timestamps covered
> as a special case in any Samba specs or code? Maybe I just have to have the
> mount script touch the time on those folders, possibly after the drive has
> been mounted. I haven't determined exactly why the timestamps on those
> folders are 0 to begin with.

You have a Mac. As much as I appreciate Samba's power and
sophistication, especially to replace Active Directory controllers
with a powerful service today, do you have a compelling reason to use
CIFS over NFS? NFS, as life turns out, may not be as performant. I
acknowledge that CIFS has improved over time. But NFS mixed case
filesystems correctly, which CIFS never will for legacy reasons. (You
can't put two files in the same directory, one named "makefile" and
the other named "Makefile".) And it can be notably less complex to
administrate on the client for just such situations as this.

It may not be your long-term desired solution, but it may get you out
of this particular rut.