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How to enable symlink following in Samba

By admin | March 30, 2010

After a recent samba update, it appears that the Samba team has decided to set their default for the “unix extensions” to yes after an update. Unfortunately, even though this means that Unix clients will now be able to create symlinks on smbfs-mounted file system, it still means that some Unix clients who wish to access where the symlink leads instead of the symlink itself. This also includes Windows clients, who have no idea of what a symlink is, and as a result error out with a “Access is denied” message. In order to access where the symlink resides one must disable “unix extensions” in smb.conf.

Open up a text editor:

sudo nano -w /etc/samba/smb.conf

and add the line:

unix extensions = no

right after the [general] section. Save by pressing Ctrl-O and then restart samba:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Symlink following should now work properly.

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Topics: Linux | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “How to enable symlink following in Samba”

  1. dontmatta Says:
    April 8th, 2010 at 03:28

    It worked like a charm. Thanks!

  2. Inari Says:
    July 25th, 2011 at 12:03

    Thank you! just what I needed.

  3. khamlichikhalil Says:
    March 27th, 2012 at 04:45

    In my experience you have to add 3 lines 🙂

    unix extensions = no
    follow symlinks = yes
    wide links = yes

    to [global] section of smb.conf

  4. go x scooters waikiki Says:
    March 30th, 2024 at 01:12

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