An issue has come up. The spec for this case said that getpw*() for
Windows users would for the time being return an SMB URL in the home
directory field. This is quite clearly incorrect since SMB URLs
contain a colon, the separator character for passwd(4)[*].
We could use a /net/<server>/<share>/<path> scheme, but this won't work
unless the server also speaks NFS, as the -hosts automount map does not
yet support negotiation of CIFS vs. NFS -- it only supports NFS.
And it's entirely possible that in the future the automounter may get a
new -hosts-like map for CIFS that is distinct from the existing -hosts
map.
There has been a small amount of discussion about this, but it's been
inconclusive. Currently there are no plans to either enhance the
existing -hosts map nor to introduce a new one that is specific to CIFS.
What to do?
I propose that we use /net/<server>/... simply because: a) it can be
made to work with multi-protocol file servers, b) we can always change
it later (perhaps by adding a knob) if a CIFS-specific -hosts-like map
is added.
Alternatively, we could simply not return a home directory value at all.
Nico
[*] Incidentally, the file format is used internally in the name service
switch / backend protocol.
