case insensitivity in multi-protocol environment (cifs/nfs)

infinitiguy — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:47:57 GMT

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a bit of information. I'd like to understand how netapp renames/presets files of conflicting case to CIFS. Below I have 3 files and when accessed via cifs those filenames are changed to DOS 8.3 format.

nfs:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6 Aug 16 14:35 longerfilename.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9 Aug 16 14:35 longerfilenamE.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Aug 16 14:40 longerFILENAME.txt

cifs:
longerfilename.txt
LONGER~2.TXT
LONGER~3.TXT

What option actually accomplishes this? Is there a way to prevent it, or change the behavior? More importantly... is there any way to get CIFS to behave in such a way that a cifs client COULD access longerfilename.txt and longerFILENAME.txt natively?

case insensitivity in multi-protocol environment (cifs/nfs)

ajeffrey — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:05:03 GMT

Hi There,

"options cifs.save_case

When this option is on, CIFS will preserve the case when files are created or renamed. If this option is turned off, all filenames will be forced to lower case. This can help with compatibility between certain 16-bit applications and UNIX tools."

now as far as long file name support that is more of a function of the client OS I think. If files are created / read / renamed in a 16 bit app then they will get the 8.3 short name. There is no limitation in ONTAP there.

Cheers

topic case insensitivity in multi-protocol environment (cifs/nfs) in Network and Storage Protocols

case insensitivity in multi-protocol environment (cifs/nfs)

case insensitivity in multi-protocol environment (cifs/nfs)