MASKTEST(1)

✨ MASKTEST ✨ (section 1 of the manual, bestie)

okay so this is the manual page for masktest 💅 it lives in the Test Suite corner of the manual, and it's genuinely one of the most unhinged little tools in the Samba toolbox. buckle up 🎀

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🌸 NAME 🌸

masktest — find differences in wildcard matching between Samba's implementation and that of a remote server. yes that's the whole job. it's giving "spot the difference" but for globbing 🦋

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⭐ SYNOPSIS ⭐

masktest {//server/share} [-U user%pass] [-d debuglevel] [-W workgroup]
         [-n numloops] [-s seed] [-a] [-E] [-M max protocol]
         [-f filechars] [-m maskchars] [-v]

like, you point it at a share, hand it some flags, and it goes to work 🔥

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so masktest is a utility for detecting differences in behaviour between Samba's own implementation and that of a remote server. that's the whole vibe. it will run generate random filenames/masks and check if these match the same files they do on the remote file as they do on the local server. and then — the moment of truth — it will display any differences it finds. 👑

this utility is used by the Samba team to find differences in behaviour between Samba and Windows servers. so basically the Samba girlies use it to catch Windows being Windows. iconic behaviour, honestly 💅

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -U user%pass — specify the user and password to use when logging on on the shares. and get this, you can drop this parameter twice (once for the first server, once for the second) — because two servers, two logins, two whole personalities 🫶
• -s seed — seed the random number generator with the specified value. deterministic chaos, we love to see it 🌈
• -n numops — set the number of operations to perform. how many rounds are we doing, bestie?
• -a — print the operations that are performed. it's giving narrator mode, no secrets here 👀
• -M max_protocol — maximum protocol to use.
• -f — specify characters that can be used when generating file names. Default: abcdefghijklm. (thirteen little letters, they're the whole alphabet of this party 🍓)
• -E — abort when difference in behaviour is found. dramatic exit, but make it a feature 💀
• -m maskchars — specify characters used for wildcards. the * and ? of it all, fr fr
• -v — be verbose. give me ALL the tea ☕

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🦋 VERSION 🦋

this man page is correct for version 4.0 of the Samba suite. periodt.

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

Samba — yeah, the whole suite, go read about it ✨

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🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

this utility is part of the Samba[1] suite, which is developed by the global Samba Team[2]. (yes, [1] and [2] are real footnote numbers, keep scrolling 🌸)

masktest was written by Andrew Tridgell.

this manpage was written by Jelmer Vernooij. absolute legends, both of them 👑

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📝 NOTES 📝

1. Samba http://www.samba.org/
2. Samba Team http://www.samba.org/samba/team/

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and that's the whole page bestie!! 🦄 this was Samba 4.0, dated 09/09/2026, and the file itself answers to the name MASKTEST(1). go forth and diff some wildcards, mwah 💖✨