[Samba] Can a macOS (Posix) client see symlinks on FreeBSD server as symlinks on client?

Jeremy Allison jra at samba.org
Tue Jan 7 21:10:18 UTC 2025


On Tue, Jan 07, 2025 at 12:36:39PM -0800, Jim DeLaHunt via samba wrote:
>
>Thank you for pointing this out, Rowland. I realise that my original 
>question did not distinguish between the SMB protocol (version 3.1.1), 
>the Samba software (version 4.15.13), and the Apple SMB code (whatever 
>version it is, and not the same as current Samba software). So really, 
>I need to understand answers to three questions:
>
>1. Does the SMB protocol 3.1.1 permit the representation of symlinks in
>   the server filesystem as something which a client could interpret as
>   Posix symlinks?

A reparse point with a tag of IO_REPARSE_TAG_SYMLINK would represent
this.

>2. Does the server software (Samba 4.15.13 in my case) send that
>   protocol representation when it encounters a Posix symlink in the
>   file system?

Not currently, but we're getting there in latest version.

>3. Does the client software (Apple SMB code from macOS 14.7.2) handle
>   that protocol representation and present it as a Posix symlink to
>   the client?

Not sure about the Apple code. Create a reparse point symlink
on a Windows server and mount it from the Apple client. If
it shows a symlink, you're OK. If not, then only SMB3+POSIX
would show as a symlink, and Apple isn't planning (to my
knowledge) to implement this.



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