Recently made the switch to Fedora and already disenchanted with the lack of server side copy on SMB.
NFS Server-side Copy Design and Standardization
NFS v4.2 is spec compliant but it looks like I need to force v4.2 by disabling legacy versions on TN.
It looks like I can do same by setting prefixing a ‘-’ before the version numbers in /proc/fs/nfsd/versions
Im the only *nix client accessing the NAS so can’t don’t foresee this being a problem except for stickiness across upgrades but am interested in what the forums have to say on the matter?
Cheers
The Linux kernel SMB client can do server-side copies just fine. There’s also no need to hack around with server settings to do server-side copy over NFS. Just mount from client with v4.2. We explicitly test this on our end. You do need to invoke cp with the correct arguments, but that’s about it.
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Can’t speak for other Linux desktops, but on KDE the Dolphin file manager had since committed a fix that should invoke server-side copying when used normally over an NFS or SMB share. (For SMB, via a cifs mount.)
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Good point, I sometimes forget about desktop environments. In addition to desktop environments there are also various applications that are supposed to “enhance” the copying experience that don’t invoke server-side copies (or even the correct copying APIs on the OS), which is ridiculous for applications that putatively have a single job to do.
Thanks for the info, ‘Files’ on fedora gnome does not seem to implement it and command line copying is not such a nice UX for day to day. I’ll search about for a better file manager so and see if any play nice. Will feed back with results.
How are you accessing the SMB share? Are you using the built-in “Network” feature in GNOME’s Files? Are you using the cifs module to mount it, whether manually, via the fstab, or via systemd-mount?
For the latter, it is what @awalkerix was referring to. 
Tried the built in method in Files first then mounted manually. Was still seeing the copying happening on the wire so tried it then via fstab. Still no joy. Dolphin is cancelling the loading of the share for me atm. I’ll have a go at it again tomorrow evening using cifs and will feed back. Thanks for looking in winnie!
This won’t support server-side copying.
If you’re attempting to use Dolphin’s built-in method, it will not work with server-side copying, anyways.
For it to work with Dolphin, you need to use the cifs kernel method (not the built-in method), and make sure it’s connecting with the latest version of SMB. (You can check with the mount command.)
I’m also curious, are you using Dolphin… in a GNOME desktop?
