Symlink

[hlnoiku]

2 questions:

1. Is it possible to have a symlink from on freenas server to another AND have windows clients be able to follow that symlink?

2. How would I go about setting this up?

Ex.

\\server1\mainfolder will have a symlink pointing to \\server2\anotherfolder

 

[SweetAndLow]

With cifs usually the server resolves the symlink and there might be a setting in samba that changes that.

Usually this isn't something people usually do. And I suspect it's not possible.

 

[anodos]

Normally samba won't follow symlinks to locations outside of the share in which they are located. The parameter you need to look at is "allow insecure widelinks". That being said, you need to think hard about this as it has security implications. I believe it opens the possibility that users with appropriate privileges will be able to create symlinks inside a share that are able to access areas of your server outside of the share, but someone else should correct me if I am wrong.

https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/smb.conf.5.html#ALLOWINSECUREWIDELINKS

 

[SweetAndLow]

I thought wide links only worked with two different shares on the same host? This question was about shares on different hosts.

 

[danb35]

If the share on the second host is mounted onto the first host, the symlink could work, I guess. Otherwise, though there may be some way to approximate what OP is asking for, a symlink wouldn't do it.

 

[anodos]

I thought wide links only worked with two different shares on the same host? This question was about shares on different hosts.

And that's what I get for trying to post first thing in the morning from a mobile phone. :D
In theory it's possible to mount a share on another server and do approximately what the OP was talking about. In practice it'll probably be buggy and have performance problems.

 

[Ericloewe]

A standard simple Windows shortcut might work. Not as "neat", but certainly more elegant, since the client is just going "Okay, I'll check that server", with no inter-server shenanigans.