samba - Jan 2008 - Propose mount.cifs/smbfs able to mount the child folder of share folder

Hi Samba team,

I feel user will feel more confortable when they can mount folder (via
mount.cifs or mount.smbfs) under particular shared folder.

Example:
I have a share folder call department, all department's folder arrange
inside

so I have a share folder call \\server\department

if I have a linux client under purchasing, I 2 command to get the
correct place, and I feel it is giving more trouble

command 1
==========mount -t cifs  -o (with necessary
option) //server/department /sharefolder/.pathtoatempararyfolder


command 2:
=============ln -s /sharefolder/.pathtoatempararyfolder/purchasing


It is much more better if we can simplied the share via this command:
mount -t cifs  -o (with necessary
option) //server/department/purchasing
/home/purchasinguser/Desktop/mydepartmentdata

kstan wrote:
> Hi Samba team,
>
> I feel user will feel more confortable when they can mount folder (via
> mount.cifs or mount.smbfs) under particular shared folder.
>
> Example:
> I have a share folder call department, all department's folder arrange
> inside
>
> so I have a share folder call \\server\department
> <snip>
> It is much more better if we can simplied the share via this command:
> mount -t cifs  -o (with necessary
> option) //server/department/purchasing
/home/purchasinguser/Desktop/mydepartmentdata
>
>   
While this should be possible to implement (I'm not a programmer so I 
won't guarantee it), it looks kind of ugly to me. You wouldn't expect to
be able to mount some directory inside an iso9660 or ntfs filesystem, 
why should cifs be different?

Surely if you want people to be limited to just subdirectories of a 
share, you should be sharing those subdirectories instead of the parent 
(which would probably make security easier to manage as well). If you 
just want to shorten the path so people can get to it quickly, well 
that's what symlinks are for.

(I have removed samba-technical from this reply as this particular 
message isn't terribly technical)

*Michael Heydon - IT Administrator *
michaelh@jaswin.com.au <mailto:michaelh@jaswin.com.au>

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:19:47 +0800
kstan <kstan79@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Samba team,
> 
> I feel user will feel more confortable when they can mount folder (via
> mount.cifs or mount.smbfs) under particular shared folder.
> 
> Example:
> I have a share folder call department, all department's folder arrange
> inside
> 
> so I have a share folder call \\server\department
> 
> if I have a linux client under purchasing, I 2 command to get the
> correct place, and I feel it is giving more trouble
> 
> command 1
> ==========> mount -t cifs  -o (with necessary
> option) //server/department /sharefolder/.pathtoatempararyfolder
> 
> 
> command 2:
> =============> ln -s /sharefolder/.pathtoatempararyfolder/purchasing
> 
> 
> It is much more better if we can simplied the share via this command:
> mount -t cifs  -o (with necessary
> option) //server/department/purchasing
/home/purchasinguser/Desktop/mydepartmentdata
> 
This is already doable today. There were some issues with earlier
versions, but with current CIFS and mount.cifs programs, this should
now work as expected.

-- 
Jeff Layton <jlayton@redhat.com>