Notes from Possible cifs-utils Bug

Here follow my testing notes concerning a problem which has arisen in the way file shares are being accessed from various Ubuntu client machines.  I am listing behaviors for both the “Connect to Server” function (via Nautilus) and those involving the mount command (especially via the fstab file).

Files and folders used to be accessible and they now are not.  These notes will help determine the exact cutoff point for the failures, though sussing out those points could be exacerbated if there are multiple causes for the errors.

The test scenario is as follows.  There is an Ubuntu server (which happens to be running 10.04 though this is not critical at present).  This Ubuntu server has multiple shares.  Various files and folders within these shares contain (at least) two known effected characters:  the colon (:) and the question mark (?).

When those locations are mounted by mount (whether via fstab or no) using a 12.04 client machine the files and the folders which contain either (or both) of those characters in their respective paths are accessible as would be expected for any such file share.

(It is of interest to note that for this particular Samba configuration, the server is not using “mangled names” (mangled names = no).  Enabling mangled names would eliminate the characters in question and thus make testing irrelevant.)

Below you will find testing results for Nautilus and mount (for each character tested) as well as version information for cifs-utils (used by mount).

(I have tested Nautilus to help eliminate server issues as a concern, but as you will see there appears to be an issue with Nautilus as well.  For my purposes, I am testing with an eye toward fixing the problem with mount and fstab.  Perhaps after I have managed that I will look again at the Nautilus problem.)

Finally, I am not a developer.  I will be doing all the testing I am able and I will file the appropriate bug reports.  I would also work with developers to perform any testing as might prove useful.

From /etc/fstab:

//server/share    /media/share        cifs    guest,iocharset=utf8 0 0

Ubuntu 12.04

  • Connect to Server (Nautilus)
    • ? folders and files function as expected
    • : folders show “- -“, throw error when opened; files play
  • mount fstab
    • ? folders and files function as expected
    • : folders and files function as expected
  • apt-cache policy cifs-utils:
    • Installed: 2:5.1-1ubuntu2
      Candidate: 2:5.1-1ubuntu2
      Version table: 2:5.1-1ubuntu2 0
      2:5.1-1ubuntu1 0

Ubuntu 14.04.5

  • Connect to Server (Nautilus)
    • ? folders and files function as expected
    • : folders show “- -“, throw error when opened; files play
  • mount fstab
    • ? folders show “0 items”, throw error when opened; files error
    • : folders show “0 items”, throw error when opened; files error
  • apt-cache policy cifs-utils:
    • Installed: 2:6.0-1ubuntu2
      Candidate: 2:6.0-1ubuntu2
      Version table: 2:6.0-1ubuntu2

Ubuntu 14.10

** 14.10 is out of service and thus I cannot download cifs-utils.

  • Connect to Server (Nautilus)
    • ? folders and files function as expected
    • : folders show “- -“, throw error when opened; files play
  • mount fstab
    • ?
    • :
  • apt-cache policy cifs-utils:
    • Installed:
      Candidate:
      Version table:

Ubuntu 15.04

  • Connect to Server (Nautilus)
    • ? folders and files function as expected
    • : folders show “- -“, throw error when opened; files play
  • mount fstab
    • ? folders show “0 items”, open but empty; files play
    • : folders show “0 items”, open but empty; files play
  • apt-cache policy cifs-utils:
    • Installed: 2:6.0-1ubuntu2
      Candidate: 2:6.0-1ubuntu2
      Version table: 2:6.0-1ubuntu2 0

Ubuntu 15.10

  • Connect to Server (Nautilus)
    • ? folders and files function as expected
    • : folders show “- -“, throw error when opened; files play
  • mount fstab
    • ? folders show “0 items”, throw error when opened; files error
    • : folders show “0 items”, throw error when opened; files error
  • apt-cache policy cifs-utils:
    • Installed: 2:6.4-1ubuntu1
      Candidate: 2:6.4-1ubuntu1
      Version table: 2:6.4-1ubuntu1 0

Ubuntu 16.04.1

  • Connect to Server (Nautilus)
    • ? folders and files function as expected
    • : folders show “- -“, throw error when opened; files play
  • mount fstab
    • ? folders show “0 items”, throw error when opened; files error
    • : folders show “0 items”, throw error when opened; files error
  • apt-cache policy cifs-utils:
    • Installed: 2:6.4-1ubuntu1
      Candidate: 2:6.4-1ubuntu1
      Version table: 2:6.4-1ubuntu1 500

Ubuntu 16.10

  • Connect to Server (Nautilus)
    • ? folders function as expected; files do not show at all
    • : folders show “- -“, throw error when opened; files error
  • mount fstab
    • ? folders show “0 items”, throw error when opened; files error
    • : folders show “0 items”, empty folder icon when opened; files error
  • apt-cache policy cifs-utils:
    • Installed: 2:6.5-2ubuntu1
      Candidate: 2:6.5-2ubuntu1
      Version table: 2:6.5-2ubuntu1 500

And that is that.  We shall see where this takes me.  Thanks for reading.

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