samba - Jun 2000 - Time resolution on stored files?

I am using a Samba server not only for file sharing but also as a location 
for backup copies of Windows based files.

I have tried using xcopy and a product call InSync from Dillobits software 
and I think both are running into the same problem.

The problem is that these tools do not think that the time stamp on the 
file stored on Samba is the same as the time stamp stored on Window (in my 
case Windows 2000).

I have been working with the product support people for InSync and this is 
the explanation they gave to me after examining a debug trace from their 
product:

------------
When InSync copies a file to a target directory it explicitly sets
the last modified time stamp of the target file to be the same as
that of the source file. Due to implementation differences between
various Microsoft OSs we allow up to 2 seconds of difference between
last modified timestamps before we consider them different and
initiate a copy. This is because some of these OSs only maintain the
stamp with 2 second accuracy. We do not know Samba implementation
details but the timestamps in the logs you provided differ by up to
4.5 seconds. This is enough to trigger a copy.
-----------

Has anyone else run into this problem? What is the solution?

Regards,

Randy Kahle

At 12:32 AM 23/06/00 +1000, Randolph S. Kahle wrote:
>Has anyone else run into this problem? What is the solution?
I have had a fair number of timestamp related problems with Samba, in my
experience they are usually due to disagreement between the client and
server clocks. Worse yet SMB time synchronization is just designed to sync.
the clock as a single event when explicitly asked for; the machines
invariably drift out of sync again fairly quickly unless other steps are
taken.

My solution was to set the Samba server up as a tier 3 NTP server (using
the xntpd package, but you can grab any NTP server daemon you like) and
install a freeware NTP client (Automachron from www.oneguycoding.com is
small & stable) pointed at the Samba server on every Windows box where this
became an issue.

I do not know if this will have any bearing on your particular situation
though, since I was only interested in getting the timestamps correct,
whereas it sounds like your backup system may want to explicitly set the
last-modified time on files it's writing to an incorrect value (IMHO it is
more likely that it just doesn't change the last-modified time when it is
copying the file, in which case clock disagreement could well be the problem).

Also have a look at the man page for smb.conf where it references the options:
	dos filetimes
	dos filetime resolution
which may be worth playing with.
--

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