samba - Apr 2022 - libICU 7.1 update to 14.6 build - [homes] no longer visible from iPhone Files app (IOS 14.8.1)

All,

  This is a strange issue. 14.6 standalone, IOS 14.8.1 Files app. A few months
back I had to add:

vfs object = fruit streams_xattr

to the global section of smb.conf to restore iPhone Files app transfer to my
samba server (Archlinux).

  The [homes] section of smb.conf continued to work, However, it just stopped
working on 14.6 package update from Arch due to the libICU 7.1 updates.

  I can set the share browseable and it now shows as "homes" instead
of
"david" in the iPhone Files app share list. In other words, the
special nature
of [homes] is lost.

  I don't see how libICU changes could bork the [homes] share, but following
install of the updated package [homes] ("david" me) stopped showing
completely
in the Files app share list. There is no way to manually map the individual
shares -- the Files app relies on it just working as [homes] always has with
"browseable = no".

  Has this been seen by anyone else? If so, is there a fix or workaround for
this?



(p.s. sorry for the hiatus - Suddenlink, my sorry ISP, due to an unexplaned
block-list configuration on their end started blocking all mail for
lists.samba.org, and the archlinux and opensuse lists over a year ago - and
there is no one competent left there to fix the issue.... I'm having to use
gmail to get the list now)

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.

[cc'ing samba-technical]

Hi David,

I'd suggest that you open a bugzilla.samba.org ticket and attach a
network trace of the non-working share access attempt, preferably also
a working access trace from a libICU downgrade...

On Sat, 23 Apr 2022 01:34:56 -0500, David C. Rankin via samba wrote:
> All,
> 
>   This is a strange issue. 14.6 standalone, IOS 14.8.1 Files app. A few
months
> back I had to add:
> 
> vfs object = fruit streams_xattr
I'm unfamiliar with the iOS Files client, but have you tried adding the
catia VFS module to your configuration above ("catia" before
"fruit")?
I ask due to Ralph's comment in vfs_fruit.c:
  * The OS X client maps all NTFS illegal characters to the Unicode
  * private range. This module optionally stores the characters using
  * their native ASCII encoding using vfs_catia. If you're not enabling
  * this feature, you can skip catia from vfs modules.

That said, I wouldn't expect this mapping behaviour to affect [homes]
section handling.

Cheers, David