The symlink feature works due to a quirk in the implementation. Home Dirs work by resolving the path <cifs.home_dir>/<user_name> using an internal NFS like operation. Since the operation is NFS like, it knows how to follow symlinks. As Keith said, we now have the root of a virtual share so we obey the NT security model from that point on.

You can't follow the symlink in CIFS due to the current security restrictions on respecting share boundaries. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > mailto: hawleyr@netapp.com mailto:hawleyr@netapp.com US Mail: Network Appliance Inc. > Phone: 408-367-3254 2770 San Tomas Expressway > FAX: 408-367-3451 Santa Clara, CA 95051

-----Original Message----- From: Graham Knight [mailto:grahamk@ast.lmco.com] Sent: Thursday, January 28, 1999 4:27 AM To: Keith Brown Cc: quinlan@transmeta.com; toasters@mathworks.com; support@netapp.com Subject: Re: multiple CIFS HOME directories?

Keith Brown wrote:

...

Is it possible to have multiple default shares for CIFS homes?

Not at the moment, although some enhancements are currently being made

in this

area. For people who have UNIX though, there is a workaround. Here's

the gig...

The idea is that you create a single home directories directory and populate it with symbolic links to the real home

directories

which can be anywhere on the filer.

So, if:

options cifs.home_dir {/vol/vol0}/home

and joe and bill have home directories in /vol/vol5/home, then from a

UNIX

client you can:

% cd /filer/vol0/home
% ln -s /vol/vol5/home/joe   ./joe
% ln -s /vol/vol5/home/bill   ./bill

We do this and it works very well. One thing that has always confused me though - the cifs.homedir works - but if i set up /filer/vol0/home as a share and browse to it all i see are the unresolved links. How come it can do one and not the other? It'd be nice to be able to browse to one spot on the filer and see all the home dirs....

Graham