Re: Deprecating smbfs(5) and removing it before FreeBSD 14

On 28/10/2021 16:44, Ed Maste wrote:
> The smbfs(5) filesystem supports only the obsolete SMBv1 protocol, and
> I propose removing it for FreeBSD 14. I know the CHERI folks have been
> using it but they plan to migrate away from it. It was broken for
> months before they fixed it, so I suspect nobody is using it on
> contemporary releases.
> 
> I have review D32707 (https://reviews.freebsd.org/D32707) open to add
> this deprecation notice to the man page:
>       The smbfs filesystem driver supports only the obsolete SMBv1 protocol.
>       smbfs and userspace counterparts smbutil(1) and mount_smbfs(8) are not
>       present in FreeBSD 14 and above.  Users are advised to evaluate the
>       sysutils/fusefs-smbnetfs port instead.
> 
> A similar notice would be added to the smbutil and mount_smbfs man
> pages, and manu@ suggested having the userland utilities emit a
> warning when they are used.
> 
> I am interested in comments, objections, or reports that anyone is in
> fact using smbfs.

I am working for one company where smbfs is heavily used to connect 
Windows / MacOS / Linux / FreeBSD (12.2) machines and we are really sad 
that FreeBSD's mount_smbfs does not support SMBv2 / SMBv3 protocols (so 
we are using SMBv1 with all the risk). I tried fusefs alternatives from 
the ports tree in the past but it never worked as is needed. From our 
point of view smbnetfs cannot replace mount_smbfs.
I cannot found any good examples of how to configure it to mount about 
20 shares from /etc/fstab on boot as user root from different hosts with 
different login, passwords and mount options to defined mount points.
Everything seems to be very differently designed to work for non-root 
user with configuration in users home, not system wide and mounting in 
some strange hierarchy. (and bad performance was cited by many on other 
platforms too)
It was discussed in the past in some other FreeBSD mailinglist that it 
is not so easy to implement SMBv2 in to mount_smbfs. But is there any 
possibility to make it as some sponsored work? What about FreeBSD 
Foundation? There were some paid projects in the past. Or some other 
bounty program. Is there anybody who have the skill to implement it if 
there is good amount of $?

If I am "well informed" FreeBSD is the only widely used OS not 
supporting SMBv2. (MacOS, Linux, Solaris have it supported)
I will be really glad "if somebody can fix it" in the base.

(or at least document how to use smbnetfs the way mount_smbfs is used)

Kind regards
Miroslav Lachman