The recent release of Linux kernel version 2.6.10 includes a much improved CIFS client for Samba (and other CIFS servers), version 1.28 of the Linux CIFS client. Manipulating POSIX ACLs (getfacl, setfacl) now is possible to servers which support this feature including Samba server version 3.0.11pre1 and later. This release also fixes a key stress bug (which could cause premature session reconnections when the socket API returned unusually small responses), as well as two important fixes for readdir. In addition, the maximum path name supported on the client has now been increased to be larger than the size supported on the Samba server. Module initialization options now are available for configuring the CIFS buffer sizes and maximum number of simultaneous requests. New mount options include a new "directio" mount option (which disables client side caching), also a new option to report persistent inode numbers from the server if they are available. Performance has also been improved, and the CIFS client when mounted to Samba server can now handle POSIX semantics sufficiently well to pass all key POSIX testcases (except byte range locking) and even pass most of these tests when mounted to Windows servers.

See the changelog fs/cifs/CHANGES and fs/cifs/README for additional details. A patch for 2.6.8 based kernels will be made available on the project page.