Ubuntu + latest samba version, symlinks no longer work on share mounted in windows

There was a recent security issue in Samba (Feb 5 2010), a claimed zero-day exploit that exploited an insecure default configuration. According to an Ubuntu Forums post on the topic, the "wide links" option now defaults to no.

Apparently the option's name was changed since those earlier instructions you found.

Adding this to the global section of your smb.conf file should fix the issue:

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

After saving smb.conf, be sure you restart Samba:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

This helped me too although I didn't think it would. I have two Samba shares on mu Ubuntu. In both shares I use symlinks but in one disrectory (shared) the symlinks were working but in another disrectory (also shared) the weren't.

I had no problems following the links on the linux but on the Win it wouldn't work.

I could even use two puTTy windows next to each other, one in my /data directory and one in my /data2 directory and issue the same command: ln -s /data3/Mydata.

The Mydata directory would appear in both my mapped drives on the Win box but in one case it would work but in the other I'd get an "Access denied" error.

The "unix extensions = no" did the trick but I don't know why...