samba - Oct 2013 - name mangling makes 8.3 unreadable unlike Windows fileserver

Hi,

I'm cross-posting here from serverfault.com in case anyone can help.  I 
just found a similar question on askubuntu.com also without an answer.

Switched recently from W2K3 to Samba4.0.9/CentOS6.4 for our fileshare 
for WinXP clients.

Have an ancient (1995!) piece of software that uses 8.3 filename format. 
After the switch, long filenames became useless in the context of the 
File->Open dialog box. Instead of the first few characters, we get maybe 
1 character the same if we're lucky, which in a directory of thousands 
makes it impossible to find. For example, instead of "S:\Air 
conditioning control system" becoming "S:\AIRCON~1" like it would
before, it's displayed in this program as "S:\A51FHG~S".

In our directory of client identifiers with their contact names 
appended, formerly directory mangling would leave enough characters 
intact that client identifiers could still be used. Not anymore.

None of the settings in the docs seem to talk about this exact problem. 
In fact, they seem to show it the way we were used to. Our smb.conf 
doesn't use any of the settings because the defaults seem to be what we 
want, according to the docs. Any hints?

(If you want to answer on serverfault feel free: 
http://serverfault.com/questions/543320/samba-name-mangling-too-mangled-to-be-practical
)

Thanks for any help,
Kev

On 03.10.2013 16:17, Kevin Field wrote:
> Have an ancient (1995!) piece of software that uses 8.3 filename format.
> After the switch, long filenames became useless in the context of the
> File->Open dialog box. Instead of the first few characters, we get maybe
> 1 character the same if we're lucky, which in a directory of thousands
> makes it impossible to find. For example, instead of "S:\Air
> conditioning control system" becoming "S:\AIRCON~1" like it
would
> before, it's displayed in this program as "S:\A51FHG~S".
In Samba3 this could be changed by increasing the value "mangle
prefix".
This works only if mangling method is changed to hash2.

I don't know how one can lookup if this still works in samba 4.
Most documentation seems to be completely unaware that samba 4 is out.

But beware that I got duplicate filenames after changing this value.
Windows prevents duplicates, Samba does not.

hope this helps,
Klaus

On Thu, Oct 03, 2013 at 10:17:18AM -0400, Kevin Field
wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm cross-posting here from serverfault.com in case anyone can help.
> I just found a similar question on askubuntu.com also without an
> answer.
> 
> Switched recently from W2K3 to Samba4.0.9/CentOS6.4 for our
> fileshare for WinXP clients.
> 
> Have an ancient (1995!) piece of software that uses 8.3 filename
> format. After the switch, long filenames became useless in the
> context of the File->Open dialog box. Instead of the first few
> characters, we get maybe 1 character the same if we're lucky, which
> in a directory of thousands makes it impossible to find. For
> example, instead of "S:\Air conditioning control system" becoming
> "S:\AIRCON~1" like it would before, it's displayed in this
program
> as "S:\A51FHG~S".
> 
> In our directory of client identifiers with their contact names
> appended, formerly directory mangling would leave enough characters
> intact that client identifiers could still be used. Not anymore.
> 
> None of the settings in the docs seem to talk about this exact
> problem. In fact, they seem to show it the way we were used to. Our
> smb.conf doesn't use any of the settings because the defaults seem
> to be what we want, according to the docs. Any hints?
This is the mangling method that changed to hash2 (gives
better protection against duplicates).

Use the smb.conf parameter "mangling method = hash"
to change it back to the way it used to be.

Jeremy.