[Samba] Inquiry: Samba and xattr with vfs_fruit on FreeBSD / ZFS (macOS Finder metadata problem)

[Lorenzo Perone]

On 10/15/25 17:19, Andrea Venturoli via samba wrote:

>> I was about to try patching it (finding where the enumeration gets 
>> lost), but I see that the FreeBSD port already has around 30 patches 
>> in place.
> 
> In fact I thing this is one of the biggest problem we have with our 
> ports; I once tried to look into this (I wrote or edited some of those 
> patches), but understanding what each one does, why it's there and how 
> it interacts with the others is very hard.
> 

By the way, scrolling through those patches in the port yesterday, I 
stumbled upon 
"0027-Add-VFS-module-vfs_freebsd-that-implements-FreeBSD-s.patch", which 
provides a vfs_freebsd (it even installs a manpage, vfs_freebsd(8)). 
While manpage and code seemed promising for the sake of correct xattr 
saving/retrieval, it did not help either.

Enabling vfs_freebsd - almost no matter where in the vfs objects stack - 
did not solve the _kMDItemUserTags read/list problem; in fact it sort of 
eliminated the use of xattrs by smbd altogether. But given the amount of 
"moving flags", I might have missed the right combination.

I'll wait for the next port release (I understand now why it takes some 
time to get there - kudos to all you folks that make it possible) and 
see if there are any changes in this regard.
I remain available for anyone wanting to ping me for a test with a big 
filebase and mixed mac/windows/linux clients.

Thanx and Best Regards,

Lorenzo