From: cgf AT cygnus DOT com (Christopher Faylor)
Subject: Re: New winsup snapshot 9/14/98
18 Sep 1998 11:53:20 -0700
Message-ID: <19980918143417.C24400.cygnus.cygwin32.developers@cygnus.com>
References: <199809181427 DOT HAA09468 AT cygnus DOT com>
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To: "Parker, Ron" <rdparker AT butlermfg DOT org>,
        Corinna Vinschen <corinna DOT vinschen AT cityweb DOT de>,
        DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com>, cygwin32-developers AT cygnus DOT com

On Fri, Sep 18, 1998 at 09:28:57AM -0500, Parker, Ron wrote:
>While, I like the idea of using extended attributes on NTFS and an
>"index file" on FAT partitions and under Windows 9[58], I see a
>potential problem with this scheme.
>
>In a network environment this could lead to inconsistent information.
>Here is how:
>
>If an NT machine shares a writable directory on an NTFS partition, the
>files in this directory would have extended attibutes, EAs.  If this
>share is then accessed from a Windows 9x machine, it would not have
>access to the EAs.  This machine could then attempt to create index file
>that might have information that did not match the EAs.

Good point.  I hadn't considered that.

Does anyone know if there is any "slop" in the directory entries for
VFAT that would allow us to shove some extra information in?

>While writing this a simple solution to this situation came to mind.  
>
>If a Windows 9x machine accesses a share that contains an index file, it
>may use and even modify the index file.  Obviously if we allow index
>files to be modified remotely, they can not be cached locally.  Either
>way, they should never be cached remotely because the serving machine
>can still the index file them.

So, if a Windows 9x machine accesses an NTFS partition over the net,
it will never see the "UNIX permissions" that are associated with the
directory?  Hmm.

>This is not an issue with NT machines because the EAs are available over
>the network.

Does anyone know if EA is available from Samba?  I seem to recall that this
was coming up at some point but I don't remember if it is in recent releases.

-chris