I have a system running Ubuntu Server 12.04. There are two data partitions, one on the same disc as the system partition and one on a separate hard drive. They are both of type ext4 and mapped to directories in the system partition via fstab. The root of each data partition is set up as a read/write Samba share. I have tried setting up symbolic links between directories on the two partitions. When trying to access the directories from a Windows computer, the symbolic links work in one direction but not the other (they all work fine from within a Linux command prompt). I can see no logical reason for this at all - the fstab entries are essentially similar and there is no basic difference in file/directory permissions on the two sides or in the Samba configurations. I'm really puzzled - can anyone help please.

Thanks,

Andrew.

It depends on samba configuration. You should look at options "follow symlinks", "wide links" and "unix extensions". Enabling symlinks is a security hole, so be carefull or use other method like "bind mount".

Also I do not understand, you wrote What sides? Do you you have two systems or one?

You should change title to something like "Symbolic links not works with Samba" because as you mentioned they works on Linux as well between partitions.