Setting up a CIFS share

It should'nt be necessary/possible to format a CIFS share. He can of course delete the contents of it, but given that it's a new CIFS share it should already be empty.

How, and why is he trying to format the CIFS share?

I dont believe you format a CIFS share like you would a volume or a drive. Since you've created a CIFS server, and have a file system, any CIFS shares created from that point should be made available right away. No formatting required.

The replies are very much correct - there is no need or no way to format a CIFS share. In fact the share is not truly a file system - it's only a network share defined on a folder structure - that means the file system structure is already built and there is no way you can format it. Formatting is applicable on a disk/volume level before you build a file system - so for NAS no such formatting is needed or can not be done.

Please explain your Windows Administrator and make him understand that the CIFS share is just like a Windows directory share - he can manage the permissions like standard Windows ACL and manage the content of the share.

However, if you have created the share on the root of the file system, the share will show .etc and lost+found directories which are part of a file system and please don't delete them.

But, if the share is created on a folder under the file system, these system folders will not be visible.

My 2 cents
Thanks,
Sandip

If enabling the ABE, how do you hide the .etc and lost+found folders on the root so that non-admin users do not see and potentially delete these folders.

I agree that creating folders within the root for Windows shares is a more ideal method, but just want to ensure that I contend with the one-offs or risky folks who believe they can get around basic secuiry measures.

Thanks,

JC

1. Create filesystem
2. Create CIFS share on FS
3. Access share and create a new directory called "Root" / whatever
4. Drop CIFS share
5. Recreate CIFS share and set mount point to /Root/

Users now see a clean root without the .etc and lost+found folders.

you can actually do without step 1 and 3 if you just access that file system using the C$ share to create the directory
Or with the Windows MMC to manage shares

Or create a treequota, which will also create the directory

Using treequota's is a actually a good idea - even if you currently dont want to constrain space you can just use them to monitor usage