Vista To Get Symlinks?

TheRealSlimShady writes "According to a post by Ward Ralston on the Windows server team's weblog, Vista server is to get symlinks as part of the SMB2 protocol." From the post: "In Vista/Longhorn server, the file system (NTFS) will start supporting a new filesystem object (examples of existing filesystem objects are files, folders etc.). This new object is a symbolic link. Think of a symbolic link as a pointer to another file system object (it can be a file, folder, shortcut or another symbolic link)."

Comments

Security risk?

[fm2503]

From TFA:

"Now why is this relevant to the SMB2 protocol? This is because, for symbolic links to behave correctly, they should be interpreted on the client side of a file sharing protocol (otherwise this can lead to security holes). "

Is it not rather:

"If the client does not interpret symbolic links then nothing will work?"

Re:Security risk?

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Presumably the security problem has something to do with symlinks that point to a file that the client does not have permission to read. If the server handles symlinks in a naive way, then on a request to open() a symlink it would open the target file (which is the usual behaviour of opening a symlink), but potentially with the wrong permissions.

If the server did no special behaviour for symlinks then they would appear to the client as a duplicate of the symlink target, an ordinary file.

Re:Ah yes

[strider44]

Perhaps you should of read the article, especially the bit "how is this different from a shortcut?"

The basis of it is that a shortcut is just a file - the exact same thing as a shortcut can be achieved by having a file with the target path just written in ascii inside, and assuming that the reader can tell it's a shortcut then it could get the target path sure, but if the reader is not equiped to specifically handle those shortcuts then it'll get muck.

A symlink masquerades as the actual file or folder, and the app doesn't need any specific handling to read the file. You can for example go into bash and write "cd symlink/" and it'll go to that folder. A shortcut is just a file, a symlink is an attribute of the filesystem.

FOUR, er FIVE symlink styles, all kinda *wrong*

[Ancient_Hacker]

So there's going to be FOUR ways to alias files and folders and volumes:

• (1) Mapping a directory to a drive letter.
• (2) Shortcuts.
• (3) NTFS mount drive as folder.
• (4) The new symlink thingy.

oops, isnt there still:

• the old DOS "subst" command too?

Make that FIVE ways. All of them looking somewhat alike, but all with subtly different syntax, semantics, overhead, and security implications. Sweet!

Vista Will Probably Be BSD-Based

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just one more clue that Microsoft has given up on the Windows code base, and that Vista will be based on BSD code.

To review the previous clues:

First, there was Microsoft's announcement that Vista (Longhorn) will use UNIX-like User Permissions:

See Longhorn to use UNIX-like User Permissions

Why would Microsoft do that, when even many Linux supporters agree that Windows permissions are finer grained? But if the new Windows is BSD-based, Microsoft would be forced to do that, or face rewriting a lot of the underlying BSD code.

Second, there was Microsoft's announcement that Unix compatibility will be "built in" to Vista:

See: Microsoft to Stop Releasing Services for Unix

Third, there is the fact that Microsoft ported .Net to BSD, as well as pushing for other software to be released under a BSD license ("All the better to steal it, my dear.").

Fourth, there was Steve Ballmer talking about the Vista "reset" which started around 18 months ago.

See: Ballmer Pushes Microsoft Innovation, Talks Vista Reset

Does anyone really think that Microsoft could succeed in doing a major rearchitecturing of the Windows code now, in only 18 months, after they had tried and failed to do so many times over the last decade?

Besides, when has Microsoft ever shown the confidence or ability to succeed on their own? DOS, Windows NT, Internet Explorer, and .Net, were all based on other companies' products, or were developed by teams hired from outside.

And now we have this new report that another basic feature of Unix, symbolic links, will be part of Vista.

Given all this evidence, I am fairly convinced that Vista will be based on one of the Open Source BSD distributions. Unlike Apple, however, Microsoft will probably try to keep it a secret, and claim it as their own innovation.

What will be the result?

On one hand, a BSD-based Vista might be a good thing, since it will result in a more stable, and less virus-prone Windows.

On the other hand, if Microsoft remains true to their history, they'll just screw it up with all the lock-in features they'll add on top. Like the VMS-and-OS/2-based Windows NT, which started out strong (version 3.51) then gradually degraded, I expect the benefits of a BSD-based Vista to be temporary.

Then again, Microsoft is just playing for time, as they continue their strategy of locking in the Internet. Thus, they only need Windows to be better for long eneough to fool their customers, again, while they tie them up with a new set of decommoditized protocols (.Net, Palladium, DRM, Windows Media, Office 12, and so on).