James,

Windows (CIFS) clients should indeed be able to follow UNIX symlinks as long as the symlinks do not point to a directory outside of the CIFS share point. This is done to maintain the security of other shares (like, say, c$). I haven't played with Samba in a while but it may operate in a similar way.

Regards,

Paul Benn Network Appliance

-----Original Message----- From: Coder, James (STP) [mailto:james.coder@guidant.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 7:00 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: following unix soft links

I recently moved users from a Solaris home server to our 760 (6.0.1.r1). filer. The users had created soft links (ln -s) to directories (either within their home directory or to other points via the automounter). Previously the Unix home shares were shared via samba and Unix users in the Windows environment could follow a soft link to the directory.

With the data moved to the NetApp, this is no longer available when using CIFS. I opened a case with NetApp and basically the answer was - that's right - the filer won't follow the link to a directory.

I have toyed with the idea of using samba on a box and letting the user point to it, thus letting samba provide the share service. Have not tried this, but was wondering if anyone has? Does anyone know of a work-around for this?

Thx in advance for any replies.

JCC

James C. Coder UNIX Administrator Guidant Corporation Phone: 651-582-4797 Email: james.coder@guidant.com mailto:james.coder@guidant.com