[Samba] Status of Windows Search Protocol support in Samba?

[Mark Rousell]

On 21/04/2020 12:38, Noel Power via samba wrote:
> (resending, apologies if you got it already but I got a rejection message)

This one got through on the Samba list.

Thank you for your helpful reply.

> yep, WSP server that translates protocol to tracker sparql queries is
> working (with caveats [1])
>
> The code would need some effort to get it in shape, as you might imagine
> there has been quite a bit of bitrot especially of late as recent dce
> rework broke it (although I have a WIP version working against current
> master (even more hacky than usual)
>
> I've also started to look at elastic search as a backend, and am going
> to talk about that a little at sambaxp. Probably that talk would maybe
> explain more (and in more detail) about some of these questions. I
> intend to talk about state of the WSP work, revisit again and explain
> how it works, what works, what doesn't,  what is provided, talk a bit
> about experience of experimenting with elasticsearch how that affect
> what needs to be done with the current implementation etc. (or something
> like that :-))
>
>
> Noel
>
> [1]
>
> WSP is complex, generic and very windows centric, there is a large
> impedance  mismatch between the features that WSP seems to be able to
> provide and query for and what say is available from tracker. (mileage
> may vary with other indexers). The WSP support that I have worked on has
> concentrated mainly on supporting the subset of queries that are emitted
> when using the search UI ribbon in windows explorer. Additionally there
> is a simple WSP samba search client that allows simple queries to
> constructed to be targeted at any WSP server.

Good idea, I think, about focussing on likely core searches from the
Windows search UI (at least to begin with).

I think that Elasticsearch vs. Tracker (or Baloo, or Recoll, or others)
is largely a use case suitability issue. If one is querying a file
server or a NAS then Elasticsearch is probably an ideal server-side
indexing solution. On the other hand, if one is querying a desktop box
(which is still a valid use case for WSP) then it would make more sense
to query into whatever the user is already running (e.g. Tracker on
Gnome, Baloo on KDE, Recoll on anything, Nepomuk on old KDE, and so on).
However, I appreciate that this is all easier said than done.

May I ask, is the index/search integration modular? What I mean is:
Would it be possible/feasible to create a plugin structure that allowed
third parties to create a plugin for an arbitrary indexing/search tool?
(And yes, I realise that creating a plugin infrastructure is even more
work than integrating directly with Elasticsearch, Tracker, etc., so I'm
just asking how things are. :-) ).


-- 
Mark Rousell