[Pkg-samba-maint] Bug#311709: #311709: not a bug, imho

[Christian Perrier]

user pkg-samba-maint at lists.alioth.debian.org
usertags 309139 toclose 200710
thanks


From the bug report:

>When mount.cifs takes a UNC name such as "//server/share" and tries
>to find the host "server", it uses gethostbyname() on "server".  This
>works fine if CIFS hosts can be resolved by DNS, but when the name
>needs to be resolved by another means, it doesn't work.  Since smbfs
>is part of the samba suite, one expects that it would try to resolve
>hosts the same way a Samba server (or smbclient, etc.) on the same
>machine is configured to resolve them (i.e., via the smb.conf
>parameter "name resolve order").

>Even if it doesn't read and heed smb.conf, it could at least try to
>query a WINS server running on the same host (the equiv. of
>"nmblookup -R -U localhost server").

>In any case, the way mount.cifs tries to resolve a UNC name ought to
>be mentioned in its manual page (which it is not).

>Finally, the error message when mount.cifs doesn't resolve a host
>with gethostbyname() is misleading.  It says "TCP name server/share
>not found".  What hasn't been found is not "server/share" but just
>"server".  And what's a "TCP name", anyway?  Something like "system
>cannot resolve the name `server' or "gethostbyname() cannot resolve
>`server'" would be more informative and helpful.

I think that *all these* are incorrect:

- there is no reason for mount.cifs to use settings in
smb.conf. Nothing is advertised as such in its documentation and, even
if it is provided along with samba, this is essentially a userland
utility to mount filesystem and use the kernel's cifs module

- why should it query a WINS server on "localhost". Nothing tells that
there should be one elsewhere and there should be one at all

- the name resolution for mount.cifs is the same than the kernel's one
and, therefore, I don't really see this as incorrect or needing a
special mention in the man page

- finally, the error message for a non existing server is:
root at mykerinos:/var/tmp/samba-test> mount -t cifs \\\\foo\\bar /mnt
mount error: could not find target server. TCP name foo/bar not found
No ip address specified and hostname not found

...which I find pretty informative.




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