samba - Apr 2004 - OS 10.3.3 client File saving problems

Hello,

I administrate a modest network of 12 Mac (os x 10.3.3) and PC clients
(win xp) connecting to a Samba server running Redhat enterprise Linux 3
and Samba 3.0.2

We just recently switched to this configuration from a Win2000 file
server running SMB and AFP that did not have any of the issues I list
below.

My OS X users are running into occasional yet persistent problems saving
files to the samba shares.  Here's a list:

1) File date modified times are not updated when a file is changed and
saved, unless the file is saved using "Save As" (Photoshop CS)

2) Sometimes after working on a file (having opened it from the server),
you cannot save it back to the share. (Quark 6, Indesign CS, Photoshop
CS)

3) Sometimes a user cannot open or save a file.  The solution in this
case is to remove the resource forks (._*) files.  Vetoing these files
by default causes permission problems with the OS X machines.

I'm using ext3's acl support to handle permissions and that seems to
work fine.

Here's my smb.conf file.  As you can see, I've tried a lot of different
things after reading this lists archives and googling for a few weeks.

dos filetimes = yes
#dos filetime resolution = yes
dos filemode = yes
# Should help with weird mac characters
unix charset = UTF8
dos charset = ASCII
unicode = yes
# prevent resource forks
#veto files = /._*/
#delete veto files = yes
log level = 4 
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

[Production]
        path = /home/shares/Production
        writeable = yes
        invalid users = %S
        oplocks = false
        level2 oplocks = false
        dos filetimes = yes


Any insight would be welcome,

Thanks.

-km

Hello,

After doing a lot of research and having a consultant come out, we
tracked the problems down to two causes.

1) I was using ACL's on an ext3 partition and they were not being
honored.  Excel in particular, when saving deletes the file and
recreates it, but the permissions were never set correctly even though
the default ACL's and Mask were set up.  I'm not sure if this is a samba
issue or the mac cifs client, since I don't know enough to know what
each piece can and cannot control.

2) The Mac cifs client was keeping a lock on resource forks ( ._ files)
even after the files were closed.  The locks were only being released
when the mac users ejected the network drive.
An easy test case for this was to have two users logged in.  With user
A, open and save an excel spreadsheet and then close it.  With user B
open the same sheet, save it, and close it.  With user A, reopen the
same sheet and save it.  The Mac will get the dreaded pin wheel while
the samba logs show NT_STATUS_SHARING_VIOLATION followed by a bunch of
NT_STATUS_NO_SUCH_FILE errors.

My thinking here is that excel deletes the file and then tries to
recreate it, but for some reason, the resource fork for the file is now
open twice, by user B and A, (even though B has closed the file) and
this causes the resave to fail.  Excel then saves it to a random file
name and gives an error.

So now for the fix:
I stumbled across DAVE, www.thursby.com
It's a replacement for Mac OS cifs client.  So far, it's working
beautifully.  Resource forks are not held open forever, file change
times are updated correctly...  I have it on all 12 OS X machines here
starting earlier today, so we'll see how it goes.

To all those other OS X people, good luck!

-km



On Tue, 2004-04-06 at 12:28, Karl Meisterheim wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I administrate a modest network of 12 Mac (os x 10.3.3) and PC clients
> (win xp) connecting to a Samba server running Redhat enterprise Linux 3
> and Samba 3.0.2
> 
> We just recently switched to this configuration from a Win2000 file
> server running SMB and AFP that did not have any of the issues I list
> below.
> 
> My OS X users are running into occasional yet persistent problems saving
> files to the samba shares.  Here's a list:
> 
> 1) File date modified times are not updated when a file is changed and
> saved, unless the file is saved using "Save As" (Photoshop CS)
> 
> 2) Sometimes after working on a file (having opened it from the server),
> you cannot save it back to the share. (Quark 6, Indesign CS, Photoshop
> CS)
> 
> 3) Sometimes a user cannot open or save a file.  The solution in this
> case is to remove the resource forks (._*) files.  Vetoing these files
> by default causes permission problems with the OS X machines.
> 
> I'm using ext3's acl support to handle permissions and that seems
to
> work fine.
> 
> Here's my smb.conf file.  As you can see, I've tried a lot of
different
> things after reading this lists archives and googling for a few weeks.
> 
> dos filetimes = yes
> #dos filetime resolution = yes
> dos filemode = yes
> # Should help with weird mac characters
> unix charset = UTF8
> dos charset = ASCII
> unicode = yes
> # prevent resource forks
> #veto files = /._*/
> #delete veto files = yes
> log level = 4 
> socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
> 
> [Production]
>         path = /home/shares/Production
>         writeable = yes
>         invalid users = %S
>         oplocks = false
>         level2 oplocks = false
>         dos filetimes = yes
> 
> 
> Any insight would be welcome,
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> -km
-- 
Karl Meisterheim
The Journal of Clinical Investigation
734-222-6050 x108
kmeister@the-jci.org