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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories IFS (Integrated File System) and Servers
Created by Guest
Created on Oct 29, 2025

RELATED IDEAS

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
  • Guest
    Dec 23, 2025

    I've read https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.5.0?topic=src-authority-other-than-exclude-required-display-objects-within-home-directory

    and it is interesting.

    but does it work if my home is in iasp "/myiasp/home" ?

    Reply
  • Guest
    Dec 17, 2025
    Thank you for submitting this idea. The IBM i file servers team understands the concept and potential uses of substitution variables in share definitions, but there is no clear way for the system to determine a substitution character string in a path name from an actual object name. The share definitions are designed to allow a wide range of normal and special characters in path names to match the native file system support. There is no clear way to support substitution variables without limiting the available character set for native file system path names.

    We have made a fairly recent change to the behavior of the /home directory to not show objects that a user does not have at least some level of authority to access. A properly secured /home directory could be shared, and IBM i NetServer users would only see the objects that they have authority to access. See this link for more details: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.5.0?topic=src-authority-other-than-exclude-required-display-objects-within-home-directory

    Again, thank you for the idea submission, but the development team will have to decline.

    -- The IBM i file servers team
    Reply

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