Hello All,

We're looking at using NetApp's Widelinks features to map symbolic links such that SMB-connected users can click through to other UNCs (on different systems) regardless of whether the system they're connected to has a mount to the other system.

I've never taken a close look at it before today and it feels like magic. You more or less map a regex so that any link that starts with (say) /mnt/foo/bar/ and has a counterpart on a separate SMB server i.e. \good_times\life-is-good<file:///\good_times\life-is-good> will translate along the lines of /mnt/foo/bar/giddyup/ = \good_times\life-is-good\giddyup<file:///\good_times\life-is-good\giddyup>.

But I also found something really scary. If from a linux machine I go to /mnt/foo/bar/ and delete the symlink "giddyup" all is well, I just delete the symlink. But if from an SMB client I navigate to \good_times\life-is-good<file:///\good_times\life-is-good> and delete giddyup I don't remove the link, I delete all of giddyup from the target.

Found this on NA's site: "Note that if a client attempts to delete a local symbolic link (absolute or relative), only the symbolic link is deleted, not the target file or directory. However, if a client attempts to delete a widelink, it might delete the actual target file or directory that the widelink refers to. Data ONTAP does not have control over this because the client can explicitly open the target file or directory outside the storage system and delete it."

I've tried changing the NA CIFS Share's properties so that symlinks are RO, tried changing the properties of the actual presented link/folder to RO, and tried changing the top level of the target folder to RO, with no difference in behavior.

Anybody else using this feature? If so, how are you doing it safely?

Hope to hear from you,

Randy

--- Randy Rue Systems Engineer, Center IT Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center 206 667 3662

[cid:8C6A9079-96CB-447C-94D9-DD59438042C1] Advancing IT and Data Services to Accelerate the Elimination of Disease.