samba - Sep 2007 - Illegal Characters in filename

Hi all,

We are sharing directories from Windows 2003 server to, among other
things, Mac computers.  Most of the time the windows shares work
perfectly.  However we are running into a problem with users entering
odd characters into file names on the Mac clients.

The Mac clients see these files/folders perfectly fine, as samba on
the Mac allows for these odd characters.  However, if someone tries to
access one of these files on a  windows client, the operation errors
out.  The errors range from "not sufficient permissions" to "the
file
doesn't exist"

For internal use, we can yell at the offenders to have them stop
adding odd characters to the names.  This will work somewhat.  But
some of these files and folders are created by external clients that
are much harder to yell at.

Is there any way to either use the mac samba client to limit the
allowed characters, or to somehow force a filename change when an
illegal character is entered?  For example, replacing the odd
character with an underscore?  Any solid way to solve this problem?

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

~Sean DiZazzo

On 14/09/2007, Sean Dizazzo <SDizazzo@ascentmedia.com>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We are sharing directories from Windows 2003 server to, among other
> things, Mac computers.  Most of the time the windows shares work
> perfectly.  However we are running into a problem with users entering
> odd characters into file names on the Mac clients.
What sort of characters?
> The Mac clients see these files/folders perfectly fine, as samba on
> the Mac allows for these odd characters.  However, if someone tries to
> access one of these files on a  windows client, the operation errors
> out.  The errors range from "not sufficient permissions" to
"the file
> doesn't exist"
Which windows clients? If the server is happy to accept file names
with these characters in them, it's odd that clients would not also
accept them.
> For internal use, we can yell at the offenders to have them stop
> adding odd characters to the names.  This will work somewhat.  But
> some of these files and folders are created by external clients that
> are much harder to yell at.
>
> Is there any way to either use the mac samba client to limit the
> allowed characters, or to somehow force a filename change when an
> illegal character is entered?
Not to my knowledge.

The Mac client is not Samba, so you might have better luck on a
Mac-specific mailing list, eg:
    http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/macos-x-server/

make sure you note what Os the mac clients are running and whether the
SMB client is the Apple one or the Thursby one

-- 
James Peach | jorgar@gmail.com