Skip to Main Content
IBM Power Ideas Portal


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM Power Systems products, including IBM i. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:

Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,

Post your ideas
  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

Status Submitted
Workspace IBM i
Created by Guest
Created on Oct 29, 2025

netserver substitution variabiles in share declaration or exit program for dynamic mapping

In many system is possible and common to connect to a logical share that then get mapped do different physical directories according to substitution variable in the share declaration.

for example accessing via SMB \\server\home

maps to the connecting user home directory.

i.e. the share "home" gets declared

like /home/%u

very common in other systems (i.e. unix samba).

%u would be the ibmi os400 user (after mapping i.e. with kerberos).

so a user connecting to \\ibmi\home would get /home/myusername

very useful also for security or mistakes in configuration compared to share the whole /home , the user just get it's own "view" , very useful in ibmi context (i.e. file publishing in the home from batch etc.).

See for example variable in a similar software (samba): https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/current/man-html/smb.conf.5.html

But on IBMi you can do even better, just allow the user to register an exit program to do the mapping (share -> physical dir), passing in the parameter the environment, share, user, group, host ip, etc.etc. it would allow for very neat scenarios.



Idea priority Medium