[Pkg-samba-maint] Can't do more than one cifs mount

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at 08:22:15AM -1000, Peter Besenbruch wrote:
> I would point out that the machine "across the ocean" has several functions 
> hosed, if you reproduced the bug remotely. You will not be able to shut it 
> down, or reboot it in an orderly fashion. Also, forget about most ACPI 
> functions.

Well, yes; I lost remote access shortly thereafter, and had to request a
remote powercycle. :)

> > It's also not reproducible for me on a system running 2.6.24rc5, so all the
> > more reason to not treat it as a blocker for the smbfs->cifs switch since
> > it's /already/ been fixed by kernel upstream.

> No, I wouldn't treat it as a blocker, but there must be thousands of folks 
> like me who run simple, home-based setups that don't need authentication. 

If these are anything other than read-only shares, then I hope not.  There
is no reason that the network should ever be trusted if this can be avoided,
and it's straightforward to avoid it with Samba.

(Even for read-only shares, data signing is a good thing to have, and that
depends on authentication; but data signing is AFAIK not enabled by default
yet with CIFS.)

> Yes, I can downgrade to Debian's Etch's version, but frankly it is a royal 
> pain. There is no loss of functionality by keeping a real SMBFS around a 
> little longer, until the 2.6.24 kernel hits testing. Even waiting until 
> 2.6.24 hits Sid would be helpful.

There is significant loss of maintainer time from keeping smbfs around.  The
smbfs implementation in crufty and regularly attracts bug reports.

> Remember, Debian Testing is the branch that upgrades more cautiously than Sid. 
> People use it for daily, critical work. Bugs like this are major, and really 
> shouldn't be there.

AFAIK this bug is not major because it only affects unauthenticated shares
which is not a recommended use; and it's not a bug in Samba; and it's fixed
in a kernel version that will be uploaded to unstable soon.  I don't intend
to flip-flop on the smbfs question merely for kernel bugs whose fix is on
the horizon.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org