samba - Dec 2004 - 3.0.9 homes share and read-only MS Excel files

Hello,

I'm hoping that somebody out there can help with this strange problem...

First off I'm running Kernel 2.6.9, Samba 3.0.9 on Debian Linux, with WinXP
clients.

Users working out of their home directories are creating and saving Excel
documents and when they later attempt to edit and save the document they've
created it results in this message from Excel 2000:

"Document saved successfully. Cannot reopen the saved document due to low
memory. Please close the document."

Upon inspection of the unix file modes I find the files are being set to
read-only (444). The users are able to modify the read-only status of the file
from their XP clients (i.e. uncheck the read-only attribute in the properties
dialog), but of course this is annoying to continuously repeat.

After some experimenting I've found that disabling nt acl support seems to
eliminate this problem, though it creates other problems not to have acls
enabled. I've tried setting "force create mode" to 0755 as a
workaround without success. It's also interesting that this does not seem to
affect any other file shares on the server.

My smb.conf homes share entry looks like this:

[homes]
  comment = User home directories (/storage2/homes)
  csc policy = programs
  strict locking = yes
  read only = no
  browsable = yes
  hide dot files = yes
  force create mode = 0755
  force directory mode = 2755

Any help with this will be greatly appreciated!!

-- 
Michael Wynne

On 12/14/2004 03:06 PM, Michael Wynne wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm hoping that somebody out there can help with this strange
problem...
> 
> First off I'm running Kernel 2.6.9, Samba 3.0.9 on Debian Linux, with 
> WinXP clients.
> 
> Users working out of their home directories are creating and saving 
> Excel documents and when they later attempt to edit and save the 
> document they've created it results in this message from Excel 2000:
> 
> "Document saved successfully. Cannot reopen the saved document due to 
> low memory. Please close the document."
> 
...

Just another data point.  O have seen this issue as well under samba 
3.0.9 running under Solaris 9.  I've not yet had a chance to dit into it 
yet other han seeing the file permissions get switched to 444 or at 
times 400.

-Bob Martel
-- 
***********************************************************************
Bob Martel,System Administrator  I met someone who looks a lot like you
Levin College of Urban Affairs   She does the things you do
Cleveland State University       But she is an IBM
(216) 687-2214
bob@urban.csuohio.edu                                -Jeff Lynne
***********************************************************************

Am Dienstag, 14. Dezember 2004 21:06 schrieb Michael Wynne:

Hi Michael,
> documents and when they later attempt to edit and save the document
they've
> created it results in this message from Excel 2000:
Yes, this problem is well known and due to the strange way how Excel saves 
files. Basically Excel does not overwrite the existing file but creates a 
temporary which later gets renamed to the original name. 
Unfortunately the file access permissions and ACLs don't get preserved...

The workaround is to use default ACLs. (check with the setfacl man page)

Regards,
-- martin

"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the
President next year."  -- Wally O'Dell - CEO of Diebold, Inc. 
e r f r a k o n
Erlewein, Frank, Konold & Partner - Beratende Ingenieure und Physiker

Michael Wynne wrote:
> After some experimenting I've found that disabling nt acl support seems
> to eliminate this problem, though it creates other problems not to have 
> acls enabled. <snip>  It's also interesting that this does not
> seem to affect any other file shares on the server.
Hang on, checking meaning of your words here...

Excel has no issue with other shares, or simply the other programs that use
those other shares are fine... thus neither appliaction nor share remained
constant between your two comparisions?

Are your param's to each share equiv, or differences there too?

I've heard some acl related issues with M$ Office before in previous
versions... maybe back around 3.0.4 to 3.0.6 range.

-- 
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems

Remove the upper case letters NOSPAM to contact me directly.

Am Dienstag, 14. Dezember 2004 22:26 schrieben Sie:

Hi,
> Don't most MS Office apps work this way?
According to my research there are small differences between the different MS
Office apps depending on versions used and on Windows OS versions.
> Anyway, if this is the problem
> then why wouldn't it be happening on other shares?
Maybe your other shares don't use ACLs?
> I'll try the setting a default acl to see what happens...
Please report back success/failure for the sake of making the ml archive
useful for others.

Regards,
-- martin

"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the
President next year."  -- Wally O'Dell - CEO of Diebold, Inc.
e r f r a k o n
Erlewein, Frank, Konold & Partner - Beratende Ingenieure und Physiker