mount options for SMB/CIFS connections
User mounts to CIFS services through GVFS appear to carry several limitations not universal either to CIFS mounts through Samba or to user mounts through FUSE.
I have observed and been affected by two in particular.
First, whereas Samba supports Unix extensions, allowing features of POSIX file systems, such as links, as long as the appropriate options are enabled and supported by both endpoints, these features appear always unavailable in CIFS mounts through GVFS. As support for links is available from a variety of FUSE modules. the limitation against them appears most likely to be from within GVFS.
Second, whereas Samba, like other mount types for network services, supports hard and soft styles of connection, those through GVFS appear to have the features of hard connections. Since use cases of GVFS would seem to include those of connections made in informal contexts, such as anonymous connections from a laptop connected over WiFi, this connection type may be harmful to the client session, and I myself have experienced my laptop entering states that left me with no clear choice except to reboot. When a connection is lost, the kernel load escalates continually, and the applications holding handles for files on the mount enter a process state in which they will not terminate even by SIGKILL
.
As GVFS is now generally mature and stable, addressing design limitations of such a kind may be a helpful direction.