samba - Apr 2009 - linux -> windows special characters in filenames problems

I'm running Samba 3.32 on my linux server to share files with the windows
computers on the network. My problem is that windows doesn't support some
special characters in filenames, like ' : ', that linux has no problem
with.
So something (not sure if it's Samba or windows) is mangling directory/file
names containing that character into 8.3 names, which makes it very
difficult to know from windows what's in the directories; I'm having to
open
each directory to see the contents, which is quite an annoyance. Here's a
couple of examples of how it's mangling directory names:


'this: is a test'    is getting turned into        'THUKO5~M'
'this: is another test'        is getting turned into       
'TPYQ1X~Y'


Since I suspect there's not an easy way to get windows to understand the
' :
' and various other characters that it probably doesn't understand
properly,
I was hoping there was a way to change the mangling to something more
readable. I don't care if it removes the ' : ' completely, or
changes it
into some other character, I just want to be rid of the 8.3 names. I'm
hoping that it's something that can be done from Samba so I don't have
to
reconfigure several windows computers, but I'll do whatever it takes if I
have to :)

I appreciate any help you all can give me.

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Kaleb Harper <kaleb.tmp@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I'm running Samba 3.32 on my linux server to share files with the
windows
> computers on the network. My problem is that windows doesn't support
some
> special characters in filenames, like ' : ', that linux has no
problem with.
> So something (not sure if it's Samba or windows) is mangling
directory/file
> names containing that character into 8.3 names, which makes it very
> difficult to know from windows what's in the directories; I'm
having to open
> each directory to see the contents, which is quite an annoyance. Here's
a
> couple of examples of how it's mangling directory names:
>
>
> 'this: is a test' ? ?is getting turned into ? ? ?
?'THUKO5~M'
> 'this: is another test' ? ? ? ?is getting turned into ? ? ?
?'TPYQ1X~Y'
>
>
> Since I suspect there's not an easy way to get windows to understand
the ' :
> ' and various other characters that it probably doesn't understand
properly,
> I was hoping there was a way to change the mangling to something more
> readable. I don't care if it removes the ' : '
It would have to

: is an illegal character as a file or folder name in windows.

This was a result of drive letters being c: d: ...


John

I just tried 'mangled names = No', it made the directory names appear
properly, but when I try to open the directory, I get an error message that
it can't access the folder. So I assume the only other way is going to be to
somehow remove/change the ' : '. Any suggestions on how to do this would
be
helpful. If it's doable inside of Samba, that's great, if not, I'm
not
opposed to putting some kind of shell script on a cron to just go thru and
rename everything with bad characters, but I'm afraid I don't know how
to do
that either :)



On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Evans, Bill <bevans@fhcrc.org> wrote:
> Try setting this in the share section in smb.conf
>
> mangled names = No
>
>
>
> Bill Evans
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: samba-bounces+bevans=fhcrc.org@lists.samba.org
> [mailto:samba-bounces+bevans <samba-bounces%2Bbevans>=fhcrc.org@
> lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of
> Kaleb Harper
> Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:03 AM
> To: samba@lists.samba.org
> Subject: [Samba] linux -> windows special characters in filenames
> problems
>
> I'm running Samba 3.32 on my linux server to share files with the
> windows
> computers on the network. My problem is that windows doesn't support
> some
> special characters in filenames, like ' : ', that linux has no
problem
> with.
> So something (not sure if it's Samba or windows) is mangling
> directory/file
> names containing that character into 8.3 names, which makes it very
> difficult to know from windows what's in the directories; I'm
having to
> open
> each directory to see the contents, which is quite an annoyance. Here's
> a
> couple of examples of how it's mangling directory names:
>
>
> 'this: is a test'    is getting turned into       
'THUKO5~M'
> 'this: is another test'        is getting turned into       
'TPYQ1X~Y'
>
>
> Since I suspect there's not an easy way to get windows to understand
the
> ' :
> ' and various other characters that it probably doesn't understand
> properly,
> I was hoping there was a way to change the mangling to something more
> readable. I don't care if it removes the ' : ' completely, or
changes it
> into some other character, I just want to be rid of the 8.3 names. I'm
> hoping that it's something that can be done from Samba so I don't
have
> to
> reconfigure several windows computers, but I'll do whatever it takes if
> I
> have to :)
>
> I appreciate any help you all can give me.
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
> instructions:  https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba
>

Try setting this in the share section in smb.conf

mangled names = No



Bill Evans


-----Original Message-----
From: samba-bounces+bevans=fhcrc.org@lists.samba.org
[mailto:samba-bounces+bevans=fhcrc.org@lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of
Kaleb Harper
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 10:03 AM
To: samba@lists.samba.org
Subject: [Samba] linux -> windows special characters in filenames
problems

I'm running Samba 3.32 on my linux server to share files with the
windows
computers on the network. My problem is that windows doesn't support
some
special characters in filenames, like ' : ', that linux has no problem
with.
So something (not sure if it's Samba or windows) is mangling
directory/file
names containing that character into 8.3 names, which makes it very
difficult to know from windows what's in the directories; I'm having to
open
each directory to see the contents, which is quite an annoyance. Here's
a
couple of examples of how it's mangling directory names:


'this: is a test'    is getting turned into        'THUKO5~M'
'this: is another test'        is getting turned into       
'TPYQ1X~Y'


Since I suspect there's not an easy way to get windows to understand the
' :
' and various other characters that it probably doesn't understand
properly,
I was hoping there was a way to change the mangling to something more
readable. I don't care if it removes the ' : ' completely, or
changes it
into some other character, I just want to be rid of the 8.3 names. I'm
hoping that it's something that can be done from Samba so I don't have
to
reconfigure several windows computers, but I'll do whatever it takes if
I
have to :)

I appreciate any help you all can give me.
-- 
To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
instructions:  https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 12:03:00PM -0500, Kaleb Harper
wrote:
> I'm running Samba 3.32 on my linux server to share files with the
windows
> computers on the network. My problem is that windows doesn't support
some
> special characters in filenames, like ' : ', that linux has no
problem with.
> So something (not sure if it's Samba or windows) is mangling
directory/file
> names containing that character into 8.3 names, which makes it very
> difficult to know from windows what's in the directories; I'm
having to open
> each directory to see the contents, which is quite an annoyance. Here's
a
> couple of examples of how it's mangling directory names:
> 
> 
> 'this: is a test'    is getting turned into       
'THUKO5~M'
> 'this: is another test'        is getting turned into       
'TPYQ1X~Y'
> 
> 
> Since I suspect there's not an easy way to get windows to understand
the ' :
> ' and various other characters that it probably doesn't understand
properly,
> I was hoping there was a way to change the mangling to something more
> readable. I don't care if it removes the ' : ' completely, or
changes it
> into some other character, I just want to be rid of the 8.3 names. I'm
> hoping that it's something that can be done from Samba so I don't
have to
> reconfigure several windows computers, but I'll do whatever it takes if
I
> have to :)
There's no way to fix this within Samba. Names containing ":" are
illegal on Windows machines, we have to mangle them. You'll have
to change these names if you want the names to be seen correctly
from Windows.

Jeremy.

Extension of this problem - I am experiencing the same as Kaleb, all
file names that include Windows-unfriendly characters are displayed as
apparently random eight-character names like "THUK05-M". But
there's
more - charsets don't seem to match.

My setup:
Samba 3.2.7 running on openSUSE 11.1 / KDE 4.1 / latest x86_64 XEN kernel.
Home network with three WinXP boxes (sp3) - workgroup, so no PDC.
Supposedly, all should talk UTF-8 over the network.

Accessing shared directories works well in both directions (win <->
linux), although with the same problem as Kaleb.

Furthermore, when I access a samba share from any XP machine,
file/directory names on the Linux machine with non-ASCII characters e.g.
"G? Reinders" will display wrongly, with box replacing '?'. I
can copy
the folder to the XP machine (this can be done from either end) and no
error is given, and I can open the folder on the windows machine locally
even though the name still "looks wrong" i.e. has that box character
in
it (of course, I can fix it manually from there, but that's not the
point). When I then access the XP machine from the Linux machine,
Konqueror gives an error message:

File does not exist
smb://winxp2/My%20Documents/G%EF%BF%BD%20Reinders

It then displays the My Documents folder, showing "G? Reinders" with
an
icon indicating a protected file. If I click on it, I get the error:
this file doesn't exist, and I can't open it. Now here's the funny
thing: if I just type the path smb://winxp2/My Documents/G? Reinders
into the Konqueror prompt, it opens flawlessly!

testparm -v | grep "charset" on Linux machine returns:

dos charset = CP850
unix charset = UTF-8
display charset = LOCALE

Windows XP should talk UTF-8 over the network by default, right? Is
there a way to check this?

All help welcome and appreciated.
Cheers,
Haro


Kaleb Harper schreef:
> I'm running Samba 3.32 on my linux server to share files with the
windows
> computers on the network. My problem is that windows doesn't support
some
> special characters in filenames, like ' : ', that linux has no
problem with.
> So something (not sure if it's Samba or windows) is mangling
directory/file
> names containing that character into 8.3 names, which makes it very
> difficult to know from windows what's in the directories; I'm
having to open
> each directory to see the contents, which is quite an annoyance. Here's
a
> couple of examples of how it's mangling directory names:
>
>
> 'this: is a test'    is getting turned into       
'THUKO5~M'
> 'this: is another test'        is getting turned into       
'TPYQ1X~Y'
>
>
> Since I suspect there's not an easy way to get windows to understand
the ' :
> ' and various other characters that it probably doesn't understand
properly,
> I was hoping there was a way to change the mangling to something more
> readable. I don't care if it removes the ' : ' completely, or
changes it
> into some other character, I just want to be rid of the 8.3 names. I'm
> hoping that it's something that can be done from Samba so I don't
have to
> reconfigure several windows computers, but I'll do whatever it takes if
I
> have to :)
>
> I appreciate any help you all can give me.
>