samba - Sep 2004 - Filename problem (filenames containing slashes aka.\and /)

We _cannot_ go about renaming files, for a number of reasons.. the primary being
some of the files are technically not ours to alter without a clients permission
(names and all) and you don't understand just how many files there are.
There are quite probably thousands of files, spread across _hundreds_ of cds and
dvds which comes to a total of roughly 400GB.

As to a Mac server, i'm not sure how much they cost but i'm guessing a
lot for what i'm wanting.

I'm planning on building a RAID-5 fileserver running Linux (still undecided
on distro) most likely running Netatalk and Samba. The server itself i'm
planning for roughly 1TB of storage, possibly more. (at the moment in my plans
it calls for 6x 250GB hdd's which gives me 1.2TB)

The cost of the above if I use Linux (and build it myself) comes to roughly
?1000, which i'm guessing is a damn sight cheaper than a Mac equivalent
server solution. (hell that's cheaper than a normal Mac tower)


Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: Craig White [mailto:craigwhite@azapple.com]
Sent: 21 September 2004 18:45
To: Mark C. Casey
Subject: RE: [Samba] Filename problem (filenames containing slashes
aka.\and /)


On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 09:03, Mark C. Casey wrote:
> I've since got it partially working with Netatalk.
> 
> I can access it on OS 9 machines but not OS 10 for some reason.
> 
> For example, I created a directory called "test / sedrs \ sfg"
and according to ls the actual filename under linux is "test :2f sedrs \
sfg". So, it displays great on the Mac. So i'm sortof halfway there
since the OS 10 machines cannot access the netatalk share.  :D
> 
> Still, I would prefer if there was a way to do this using Samba 3 instead.
----
I have netatalk working with both OS9 & OSX clients and you should be
able to as well - new version RC2 released yesterday - but this is
beside the subject of samba

There fact that Macintosh permits usage of characters not normally
permitted in other operating systems is a liability for Macintosh and
the indifference to others naming rules (not only characters such as ?/\
but also ending a name with a space or a period) is to the Macintosh
users detriment.

I have subjected several of my clients to the 'new rules' and run
wholesale name cleanup on their existing files as it's more important to
play nicely with others than it is to unthinkingly persist in Macintosh
ignorance. The benefit is that with names that have been cleaned up and
legal means that I can use various Unix/Linux/Windows utilities to
backup/find/grep/index/tar etc. - not just Macintosh centric software on
Macintosh computers.

Craig

Mark C. Casey wrote:
>We _cannot_ go about renaming files, for a 
>number of reasons.. the primary being some of 
>the files are technically not ours to alter 
>without a clients permission (names and all) and 
>you don't understand just how many files there 
>are. There are quite probably thousands of 
>files, spread across _hundreds_ of cds and dvds 
>which comes to a total of roughly 400GB.
I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't 
change the situation - that no-one has a 
'solution' for you. Perhaps there is some 'middle 
ground' you can explore (see below).
>As to a Mac server, i'm not sure how much they 
>cost but i'm guessing a lot for what i'm wanting.
>
>I'm planning on building a RAID-5 fileserver 
>running Linux (still undecided on distro) most 
>likely running Netatalk and Samba. The server 
>itself i'm planning for roughly 1TB of storage, 
>possibly more. (at the moment in my plans it 
>calls for 6x 250GB hdd's which gives me 1.2TB)
>
>The cost of the above if I use Linux (and build 
>it myself) comes to roughly ?1000, which i'm 
>guessing is a damn sight cheaper than a Mac 
>equivalent server solution. (hell that's cheaper 
>than a normal Mac tower)
You are right that a Mac server will cost more than your home-brew Linux box.

FWIW, I recently had to decide how to equip our 
Design department with their own fileserver. I 
decided to put in a G5 XServe so that OS X could 
take care of any file name mangling required 
(Samba is an integral service with OS X Server). 
When I get time the plan is to integrate it with 
the LDAP database from the main fileserver. I 
also felt it was 'safer' given that Netatalk 
still has issues (not least that it stores files 
differently to OS X via Samba) and they still 
have OS 9 machines which don't natively talk to 
Samba servers. To be perfectly honest, the price 
wasn't all that much more than buying a rack 
mount Dell server - especially taking all the 
'incidental' costs (how much will it cost you to 
fix your filenames ?) into account. BTW, you 
haven't said how many users, you might find that 
you can 'liberate' a G4 that's due for an upgrade 
from someones desk, stick on OS X Server 10 user, 
and have an adequate server (400G isn't much BTW 
- our XServe has 500G of space available on raid 
5 (3x250G disks) and I expect to have to switch 
to an external XRaid in a year or two when we run 
out of capacity.)

So where can you go from here ? Well the obvious 
(but not very helpful) response is not to start 
from here ! Going forward you must educate your 
designers to avoid all characters that have any 
issues with cross platform compatibility - it is 
the only long term solution. For existing work, 
do you really, absolutely, HAVE to put it all on 
the server ? For stuff that's "spread across 
_hundreds_ of cds and dvds" just leave it there 
until you have to do some work on it, and fix the 
problems as you come to them.

As to stuff that you'd need a clients permission 
to alter, well go and ask them ! Many of your 
clients are probably having the same issues and 
wishing they could change the names "but they 
can't because the designers did it that way" and 
are afraid to ask you to change them. Combine 
that with only fixing stuff when you have to 
change anything (ie when a client comes back for 
some changes, get permission to sort the 
filenames) and I think you'll find that the scale 
of the problem is reduced significantly.

Simon

-- 
Simon Hobson MA MIEE, Technology Specialist
Colony Gift Corporation Limited
Lindal in Furness, Ulverston, Cumbria, LA12 0LD
Tel 01229 461100, Fax 01229 461101

Registered in England No. 1499611
Regd. Office : 100 New Bridge Street, London, EC4V 6JA.

I've now got Netatalk working flawlessly with OS 10. (hurray!)
What I now plan to do is for a monthly backup of the raid server to tar &
gzip (to ensure filenames and permissions are kept) the entire archive then
write it to tapes or dvds.
I can simply use samba so I can access the tar.gz file to write to multiple
tapes or dvds.

Thanks for all the help

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: samba-bounces+markcc=jadepress.co.uk@lists.samba.org
[mailto:samba-bounces+markcc=jadepress.co.uk@lists.samba.org]On Behalf
Of rruegner
Sent: 22 September 2004 10:10
To: Simon Hobson
Cc: samba@lists.samba.org
Subject: Re: [Samba] Filename problem (filenames containing slashes
aka.\and /)


Hi, i total agree with you, using a mac server, or and  educate the 
users will be the only solution which will work now and in the future.
If it such important to store this ugly named stuff on a fileserver 
costs will rise for sure, but costs shouldnt be the main problem if
you plan to setup a long term staying fileserver.
Regards

Simon Hobson schrieb:
> Mark C. Casey wrote:
> 
>> We _cannot_ go about renaming files, for a number of reasons.. the 
>> primary being some of the files are technically not ours to alter 
>> without a clients permission (names and all) and you don't
understand
>> just how many files there are. There are quite probably thousands of 
>> files, spread across _hundreds_ of cds and dvds which comes to a total 
>> of roughly 400GB.
> 
> 
> I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't change the situation -
> that no-one has a 'solution' for you. Perhaps there is some
'middle
> ground' you can explore (see below).
> 
>> As to a Mac server, i'm not sure how much they cost but i'm
guessing a
>> lot for what i'm wanting.
>>
>> I'm planning on building a RAID-5 fileserver running Linux (still 
>> undecided on distro) most likely running Netatalk and Samba. The 
>> server itself i'm planning for roughly 1TB of storage, possibly
more.
>> (at the moment in my plans it calls for 6x 250GB hdd's which gives
me
>> 1.2TB)
>>
>> The cost of the above if I use Linux (and build it myself) comes to 
>> roughly ?1000, which i'm guessing is a damn sight cheaper than a
Mac
>> equivalent server solution. (hell that's cheaper than a normal Mac
tower)
> 
> 
> You are right that a Mac server will cost more than your home-brew Linux 
> box.
> 
> FWIW, I recently had to decide how to equip our Design department with 
> their own fileserver. I decided to put in a G5 XServe so that OS X could 
> take care of any file name mangling required (Samba is an integral 
> service with OS X Server). When I get time the plan is to integrate it 
> with the LDAP database from the main fileserver. I also felt it was 
> 'safer' given that Netatalk still has issues (not least that it
stores
> files differently to OS X via Samba) and they still have OS 9 machines 
> which don't natively talk to Samba servers. To be perfectly honest, the
> price wasn't all that much more than buying a rack mount Dell server - 
> especially taking all the 'incidental' costs (how much will it cost
you
> to fix your filenames ?) into account. BTW, you haven't said how many 
> users, you might find that you can 'liberate' a G4 that's due
for an
> upgrade
> 
>> from someones desk, stick on OS X Server 10 user, 
> 
> and have an adequate server (400G isn't much BTW - our XServe has 500G 
> of space available on raid 5 (3x250G disks) and I expect to have to 
> switch to an external XRaid in a year or two when we run out of capacity.)
> 
> So where can you go from here ? Well the obvious (but not very helpful) 
> response is not to start
> 
>> from here ! Going forward you must educate your 
> 
> designers to avoid all characters that have any issues with cross 
> platform compatibility - it is the only long term solution. For existing 
> work, do you really, absolutely, HAVE to put it all on the server ? For 
> stuff that's "spread across _hundreds_ of cds and dvds" just
leave it
> there until you have to do some work on it, and fix the problems as you 
> come to them.
> 
> As to stuff that you'd need a clients permission to alter, well go and 
> ask them ! Many of your clients are probably having the same issues and 
> wishing they could change the names "but they can't because the 
> designers did it that way" and are afraid to ask you to change them. 
> Combine that with only fixing stuff when you have to change anything (ie 
> when a client comes back for some changes, get permission to sort the 
> filenames) and I think you'll find that the scale of the problem is 
> reduced significantly.
> 
> Simon
> 
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