Hacking through the limitations by iXSystems and get insecure wide links to work on TrueNAS Scale

SMB Symlinks on TrueNAS Scale.md

Take your own risk because wide links is explicitly not supported, may not survive after upgrade, and may conflict with the functionalities of SMB share.

1. Comment out the parameter blacklists:

cd /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins/smb_/util_param.py
cp util_param.py util_param.py.bak
nano util_param.py

Comment out the xxx links lines: https://github.com/truenas/middleware/blob/c1ef17656d3e4a893a71086db18783bfc05b2460/src/middlewared/middlewared/plugins/smb.py#L1167

Comment out the xxx links lines: https://github.com/truenas/middleware/blob/44f4d83636ba7146f06f4197e2116a9f38178546/src/middlewared/middlewared/plugins/smb_/util_param.py#L28

2. Restart middlewared

systemctl restart middlewared

3. Add aux parameters: cli to enter CLI interface then, run sharing smb query to get a list of shares. Note the one you want to edit and look at its id. Then, run sharing smb update id Edit aux_params:

  aux_params:'wide links = yes

  follow symlinks = yes'

Tap on F10, close and save. Next, to modify the global options:

service smb update smb_options="allow insecure wide links = yes"

References:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/5120/how-do-you-make-samba-follow-symlink-outside-the-shared-path

https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/auxiliary-parameters-missed.113938/post-797889

Sadly they have moved these files from /usr/lib in 24.10.

Seems the new location is: /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/middlewared/plugins

Additionally, they've made this folder read-only. I assume changing top level permissions may eventually get you to a point of copying and editing the file. Not a risk I really want to take on my production system at the moment.

Confirmed that this method is still working on 25.04.
Here's how to unlock /usr: (ref: https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/scaletutorials/systemsettings/advanced/developermode/)

sudo systemd-sysext unmerge
sudo -i
# do stuff
sudo systemd-sysext merge