Support off-line files on SAM-QFS for Samba in Solaris [PSARC/2009/381 FastTrack timeout 07/13/2009]

[Garrett D'Amore]

Darren J Moffat wrote:
> Alan.M.Wright wrote:
>> Providing this as a temporary solution to relieve a customer problem
>> is excellent.  My disagreement is that it should be committed as a
>> long term solution for offline support when we already have a defined
>> system attribute mechanism that could be used to solve the problem
>> via libc.
>
> Given the above I'm derailing this case for the purpose of writing an 
> opinion with Advice to fund the above mentioned project and to point 
> out the issue of adding Solaris/Sun functionality to Samba with no 
> planned match for the in kernel CIFS server.
>
> PSARC members please are you willing to vote based on the above our 
> would you like to see draft opinion text first.   I've marked the case 
> as "waiting need vote" for now.
>
> Note that this is *derail* not *deny* (though depending on the vote it 
> could be but I doubt it).
>
I was the original +1.  I would normally have thought to vote to 
approve, but given the recent discussion, I'm not sure I am ready.  
Since this solution to the problem is temporary, and since binary relief 
is already available to the customer, I am inclined to vote to deny this 
project until they have a solution that works with both kernel CIFS and 
Samba.

On a higher level, as yet another case where we have redundant 
functionality in two (or more) different systems, it seems like someone 
(PAC) ought to start funding an effort to consider reducing the 
complexity of the system by also reducing the number of duplicated 
subsystems.  (Do we need both of these SMB servers?  Do we need a bunch 
of different web servers?  Do we need both cups and lpsched?  Then the 
array of various different packet interception and filtering mechanisms 
in our stack boggles the mind... at what point does the fact that we 
have so much choice actually become a liability to our customers rather 
than a benefit?  Its *clear* to me that it is already a liability in the 
cost to Sun engineering....

    -- Garrett