Samba file timestamp policy with Linux client .vs. Windows client

I am experiencing a difference in file timestamp behaviour between a Linux
and Windows client accessing a SMB share hosted on a Windows 2003 Server
platform.

Files accessed by the Linux client are left with Modified and Accessed times
based upon the time on the client. Files accessed by the Windows client
(also running Windows 2003 Server) are left with Modified and Accessed times
based upon the time on the *server*. This is causing problems for me as I
have an application running on the server which uses these timestamps to
detect the presence of new or modified files - sometimes file updates are
missed when the update occurs from the Linux client if the system time on
the Linux client is behind that of the server.

Does anyone know if I can configure the SMB client running on the Linux
platform to behave the same as the Windows 2003 SMB client, i.e. I want my
timestamps to be set according to the current time on the server as opposed
to the client.

Thanks,
Richard.

In article <40445a2c$(E-Mail Removed)>, Richard Conway wrote:

> Does anyone know if I can configure the SMB client running on the Linux
> platform to behave the same as the Windows 2003 SMB client, i.e. I want my
> timestamps to be set according to the current time on the server as opposed
> to the client.

NET TIME?


--
John L. Cunningham

On 4 Mar 2004 16:15:44 GMT,
John L. Cunningham <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:


> In article <40445a2c$(E-Mail Removed)>, Richard Conway wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know if I can configure the SMB client running on the Linux
>> platform to behave the same as the Windows 2003 SMB client, i.e. I want my
>> timestamps to be set according to the current time on the server as opposed
>> to the client.
>
> NET TIME?
>


SMB file systems expects time stamp in local time. Therefore the linux
kernel needs to know the UTC to localtime offset to translate unix
time to localtime. This doesn't occur automatically, but setting the
timezone information in a call to settimeofdat() would do it (at least on
kernel 2.2). Remember that the unix and linux kernel does not otherwise
use localtime for anything so failing to set the timezone in the kernel
doesn't affect anything except SMB and VFAT file systems time stamps.


Villy