samba - Jan 2023 - msdfs proxy and subfolders

Hello, everyone,
I'm seeing some inconsistent behavior across SMB clients when
configuring shares using the "msdfs proxy" parameter, and was hoping
to get some advice from the community on this. My issue is that
various SMB clients seem to behave differently when this parameter is
pointed as a path that includes a sub-folder under the root share.

So, given the following share configuration:

[share1]
    comment = My DFS Proxy Share
    msdfs root = yes
    msdfs proxy = \fileserver1.example.com\shares\share1

I see the following behavior:
* Windows: Windows clients accessing this \\dfsserver\share1 path see
the intended destination - the contents of the
\\fileserver1.example.com\shares\share1 folder.
* smbclient (4.15.12): smbclient stops at the root share, so
connecting to \\dfsserver\share1 via smbclient shows the contents of
the \\fileserver1.example.com\shares folder.
* SMBJ: The SMBJ client behaves similar to the smbclient
implementation, stopping at the root share.
* Mac: The MacOS SMB client appears to behave similar to Windows,
traversing all the way to the share1\ folder.
* Linux mount.cifs: Mounting on Linux with mount.cifs works similar to
Windows and Mac, where the mount ends up showing the contents of the
share1\ folder.

If, instead of using "msdfs proxy", I create a /shares folder and use
the symlink method to create a link to
msdfs:fileserver1.example.com\shares\share1, that link is evaluated as
I intended, showing the contents of the share1 folder.

So, given the variety of behavior, my questions are:
* Is using the "msdfs proxy" parameter to point to a sub-folder of a
share considered poor practice, against standards, etc.?
* Would the behavior of smbclient and smbj be considered a bug, or the
intended/correct behavior?

Thanks - Nick

On Thu, Jan 05, 2023 at 01:28:55PM -0500, Nick Couchman via samba
wrote:
>Hello, everyone,
>I'm seeing some inconsistent behavior across SMB clients when
>configuring shares using the "msdfs proxy" parameter, and was
hoping
>to get some advice from the community on this. My issue is that
>various SMB clients seem to behave differently when this parameter is
>pointed as a path that includes a sub-folder under the root share.
>
>So, given the following share configuration:
>
>[share1]
>    comment = My DFS Proxy Share
>    msdfs root = yes
>    msdfs proxy = \fileserver1.example.com\shares\share1
>
>I see the following behavior:
>* Windows: Windows clients accessing this \\dfsserver\share1 path see
>the intended destination - the contents of the
>\\fileserver1.example.com\shares\share1 folder.
>* smbclient (4.15.12): smbclient stops at the root share, so
>connecting to \\dfsserver\share1 via smbclient shows the contents of
>the \\fileserver1.example.com\shares folder.
>* SMBJ: The SMBJ client behaves similar to the smbclient
>implementation, stopping at the root share.
>* Mac: The MacOS SMB client appears to behave similar to Windows,
>traversing all the way to the share1\ folder.
>* Linux mount.cifs: Mounting on Linux with mount.cifs works similar to
>Windows and Mac, where the mount ends up showing the contents of the
>share1\ folder.
>
>If, instead of using "msdfs proxy", I create a /shares folder and
use
>the symlink method to create a link to
>msdfs:fileserver1.example.com\shares\share1, that link is evaluated as
>I intended, showing the contents of the share1 folder.
>
>So, given the variety of behavior, my questions are:
>* Is using the "msdfs proxy" parameter to point to a sub-folder of
a
>share considered poor practice, against standards, etc.?
>* Would the behavior of smbclient and smbj be considered a bug, or the
>intended/correct behavior?
Looks like a bug in smbclient to me. Can you log a bug
and I'll follow up. Thanks !