9.2 The Directory Path

9.2 The Directory Path

The directory path looks just like a directory path, but there is one small thing that makes it different. That thing is called the "share name ."

Whenever a resource is made available (shared) via SMB it is given a share name. The share name doesn't need to be the same as the actual name of the object being shared as it exists on the server. For example, consider the directory path below:

 /dogs/corgi/stories/jolyon/ 

Suppose we just want to share the /stories subdirectory. If we simply call it " stories " no one will know what kind of stories it contains, so we should give it a more descriptive name. We might, for example, call it " dogbytes ".

The share name takes the place of the actual directory name when the share is accessed via SMB. If the server is named " petserver ", then the UNC path to the same directory would be:

 \petserver\dogbytes\jolyon\ 

As shown in Figure 9.1, there can be more than one share name pointing to the same directory and access rules may be applied on a per-share basis. The idea is similar, in some ways, to that of symbolic links ( symlinks ) in Unix, or shortcuts in Windows. The share is a named pointer with its own set of attributes to the object being made available by the server.

Figure 9.1. SMB shares

Share names are similar to Unix symlinks . Multiple share names may point to the same directory on the server or to different directories. Each share may have its own set of permissions.