add support for CIFS Unix extensions to the kernel

[Dan Nicolaescu]

The patch at 

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/smbfs/

adds support for the CIFS Unix extensions to the 2.4 SMBFS
implementation.

This patch serves a real need: in many places users' homedirs (that
are properly backed up) are on NFS servers, but the sysadmins don't
allow people that administer their own Linux boxes/laptops to
NFS-mount their UNIX homedir, they can only use SMB mounts to access
their homedirs. 
But SMB is inconvenient as chmod, symlinks, hardlinks, etc don't work.

With the patch above it is possible to mount directories from a
properly configured SAMBA server and have full UNIX file system
semantics.

I know this is already available for 2.6, but it would be great to
have this functionality available in the 2.4 Fedora Core kernel as it
might take a while until 2.6 is stable enough for being the default
kernel, and this patch serves a real need for an important class of
users.

A lot of people could use this functionality if they were aware that
is readily available. 

Disclaimer: I have not written this patch, I am just a happy user (for
>1.5 years).

Thanks.
                --dan