CIFS system attributes support for cp(1), pack(1), unpack(1), compress(1) and uncompress(1) [PSARC/2007/432 FastTrack timeout 08/02/2007]

[Hugh McIntyre]

Don Cragun wrote:
> This case adds a new command line option '-/' to cp(1), pack(1), unpack(1),
> compress(1) and uncompress(1) to support the extended system attributes
> added in PSARC case 2007/315.

Three or four questions:

1)  What happens for "cp -p"?  For the corresponding non-extended 
attribute option (@), the attributes get copied with just "cp -p" 
without you needing "cp -p@".  Will extended attributes be handled the 
same way?

2)  For compress/uncompress and pack/unpack, why would you not want 
these extended attributes to always be preserved without needing to 
specify -/?

     Put another way, with existing attributes, the two commands 
"compress foo ; uncompress foo.Z" will give you the original file back 
including ACLs and attributes (for fsattr-style attributes).  It seems 
like at least some of the existing attributes would be things you'd want 
to be preserved by default, in much the same way as there's no "compress 
-p" option to preserve permissions because you just always want this.

    In the case of 2007/315 style attributes, the special meaning means 
that some attributes might want to always be preserved by default, while 
others might want to be always set or cleared.  For example:

	- You might want to always preserve AV_QUARANTINED, if set.

	- AV_MODIFIED would presumably always want to be set unless someone uses -/

	- for others such as HIDDEN, NODUMP, ARCHIVE, and probably others, 
there could be an argument that these should have their settings preserved.

3)  Will you be attempting to get similar changes into gzip and bzip2?

4)  What does Windows or MacOS do when copying files with attributes 
without special options?  Should Solaris copy the same behaviour?

Hugh.