The manpage says """ wide links (S) This parameter controls whether or not links in the UNIX file system may be followed by the server. Links that point to areas within the directory tree exported by the server are always allowed; this parameter controls access only to areas that are outside the directory tree being exported. """ This parameter should not apply to CIFS clients using Unix Extensions (such as mount.cifs), because they will never make the server dereference it, but display it as a genuine symlink. I think the "wide links" option should be split into "server dereference" to control the behavior for non-unix-extension clients, and a "pure symlinks" option to do it the NFS way, to pass symlinks as-is, knowingly that the symlink target may point outside the intended directory _on the client_: lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Oct 7 21:11 /erk/tftpboot/terran/sbin/rckbd -> /etc/init.d/kbd (When terran is mounted as '/' on a diskless client, it points to the right file, /erk/tftpboot/terran/etc/init.d/kbd)