RE: IFS Symlink to Windows Share

Not sure of the exact use case ?

Are users trying to access files from their desktop or are you trying to access or create files from an IBMi app ?

Couple of general potentials: (NFS and Windows Services for Unix might be easiest because you can lock to one user ID)

Windows shares: Don't link to Windows shares directly from the IFS using QNTC.

NFS option: Install Windows Services for Unix on the Windows Server.

Create NFS shares.

Mount those shares.

You can copy files to/from the network from your IBM i jobs.

Samba smbclient: Install samba server on the IBMi. You don't need to start it, but you can use the smbclient PASE program to send/receive files back and forth to regular Windows shares, however you would probably have to either store a Windows user/pass of have a guest account on the Windows server.

Stick with QNTC: Possibly run all your jobs that need access to Windows server in batch using the same IBMi profile.

Use FTP or SFTP: FTP is never a bad option for sending/receiving files.

Tell us more specifics about what the jobs are doing so we can guide you.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
Web: http://www.richardschoen.net
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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message: 2
date: Wed, 02 Dec 2020 15:00:28 +0000
from: Brian <belstsrv@xxxxxxxxx>
subject: IFS Symlink to Windows Share

Hi All,

Trying to find an optimal solution to some directory sharing challenges.
I'll start by saying what I am trying to do.

We have a root folder on the IFS that holds all the subfolders for our application.

/app

In there we have some normal IFS folders and then some symlinks to Windows shares that are "found" in QNTC.

For example:
/QNTC/server1/data
becomes
/app/data

The user ID that our main application runs on exists both on the IBMi and also on the Windows domain with matching passwords. So, using the symlinks (or just surfing through QNTC) works just fine for that user and our programs that run under that ID.

My issue comes in that several of our developers have IBMi accounts that are not the same as the Windows network accounts and trying to make them the same, and then keep the passwords in sync, etc. becomes a pain and one that I would like to avoid.

Is there a way to map the drive/create the symlink with a default user?
Or
Perhaps some way to use some sort of guest access through QNTC?
Or
Is there a better way to accomplish the sharing than what I am trying to do (something other than QNTC)

The Windows server is 2019 Server (I did enable SMB1 on it as part of my
troubleshooting)
IBMi is @ 7.3

Thanks everyone,
Brian