CIFS VFS: cannot query directory between root and final path

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

Issue

  • CIFS VFS: cannot query directory between root and final path, Enabling CIFS_MOUNT_USE_PREFIX_PATH
  • Size Issue after mounting windows share as a CIFS in df -h output.

Resolution

  • The error message means that the user credentials being used do not have permissions to a parent directory of the share path being mounted.

  • Ordinarily, the client will connect to the \server\share, and then follow down each sub-directory until it reaches the full path being mounted.

  • However, if the user's credentials do not allow the user to access those parent directories, the client will be unable to do so.

  • So we have to provide all the necessary permission to the entire share path where user can access those parent directories as well.

Root Cause

  • Suppose the CIFS share is //test/cifs/share/example and mounting on /cifs_share mount point

  • So the client is attempting to connect to //test/cifs, then looks up share, and finally looks up example

  • However, the user does not have permissions to access either //test/cifs or //test/cifs/share, so the client has to mount the sub-directory itself, using a prefix-path

  • If the share is mounting as expected, the messages can be ignored. After execution of df -h, it does not show up. but if we specifically enter a df -h /filesystem, the output is in bizarre

//test/cifs/share/example  0.0K  0.0K  0.0K    - /cifs-share
  • This is expected. The client does not have access to query the size and available size of the root of the share, so cannot output any data for the mount that is reason unable to do stat to the filesystem and get any information from the server

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