Traditionally, only the root user and the owner of a file can change its last-modified date on a Unix system. The share-level
dos
filetimes option allows the Samba server to mimic the characteristics of a DOS/Windows machine: any user can change the last modified date on a file in that share if he or she has write permission to it. In order to do this, Samba uses its root privileges to modify the timestamp on the file.
By default, this option is disabled. Setting this option to
yes is often necessary to allow PC
make programs to work properly. Without it, they cannot change the last-modified date themselves. This often results in the program thinking
all files need recompiling when they really don't.
