samba - Mar 2006 - File versioning with Samba (on a Linux filesystem)?

Apologies if this question is answered somewhere obvious. I just spent a
couple of hours surfing around trying to find an answer.

I'd like to provide windows clients with access to files via samba and have
samba (or other) do file versioning. In the case that a user happens to
delete a file or we want to return to an earlier version, that should be
possible.

Is there a standard solution for this?

I can think of various ways it might be done, but there doesn't seem to be
much on the net about doing it in practice. Support at the (in this case
Linux) filesystem level would be good. If Samba had an option to do it
automatically, that would be good. I saw something about making a .recycle
bin for file removal, but I didn't get the impression this was going to
provide file versioning.  Less good would be having Samba hooks allowing
external scripts to be run pre or post file save, so that one could use an
external source code control system. Least good is to simply rely on your
backup schedule to hopefully allow recovery.

Thanks for any help...

Regards,
Terry Jones

I'm pretty sure this can be done with a VFS module.
I couldn't say exactly which one though.

Cheers,
Henrik

28 mar 2006 kl. 19:38 skrev Terry Jones:
> Apologies if this question is answered somewhere obvious. I just  
> spent a
> couple of hours surfing around trying to find an answer.
>
> I'd like to provide windows clients with access to files via samba  
> and have
> samba (or other) do file versioning. In the case that a user  
> happens to
> delete a file or we want to return to an earlier version, that  
> should be
> possible.
>
> Is there a standard solution for this?
>
> I can think of various ways it might be done, but there doesn't  
> seem to be
> much on the net about doing it in practice. Support at the (in this  
> case
> Linux) filesystem level would be good. If Samba had an option to do it
> automatically, that would be good. I saw something about making  
> a .recycle
> bin for file removal, but I didn't get the impression this was  
> going to
> provide file versioning.  Less good would be having Samba hooks  
> allowing
> external scripts to be run pre or post file save, so that one could  
> use an
> external source code control system. Least good is to simply rely  
> on your
> backup schedule to hopefully allow recovery.
>
> Thanks for any help...
>
> Regards,
> Terry Jones
> -- 
> To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
> instructions:  https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba

> -----Original Message-----
> From: samba-bounces+cbarry=silverstorm.com@lists.samba.org 
> [mailto:samba-bounces+cbarry=silverstorm.com@lists.samba.org] 
> On Behalf Of Terry Jones
> Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:39 PM
> To: samba@lists.samba.org
> Subject: [Samba] File versioning with Samba (on a Linux filesystem)?
> 
> Apologies if this question is answered somewhere obvious. I 
> just spent a
> couple of hours surfing around trying to find an answer.
> 
> I'd like to provide windows clients with access to files via 
> samba and have
> samba (or other) do file versioning. In the case that a user 
> happens to
> delete a file or we want to return to an earlier version, 
> that should be
> possible.
> 
> Is there a standard solution for this?
> 
> I can think of various ways it might be done, but there 
> doesn't seem to be
> much on the net about doing it in practice. Support at the 
> (in this case
> Linux) filesystem level would be good. If Samba had an option to do it
> automatically, that would be good. I saw something about 
> making a .recycle
> bin for file removal, but I didn't get the impression this 
> was going to
> provide file versioning.  Less good would be having Samba 
> hooks allowing
> external scripts to be run pre or post file save, so that one 
> could use an
> external source code control system. Least good is to simply 
> rely on your
> backup schedule to hopefully allow recovery.
> 
> Thanks for any help...
> 
> Regards,
> Terry Jones
> -- 
> To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the
> instructions:  https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
>
I do something like this nightly. It's not 'real-time', and I store
the
versions on another box, but the effect is pretty similar. I have
everyone map this box via the logon script, so they all have access to
their older stuff. Letting people restore their own files is nice. ;)

It's done with a combination of glastree
<http://www.igmus.org/code/#glastree>, and custom scripting I wrote to
create a doubly-nested DFS tree, and to create all of the samba
configuration files and acl files on the fly. I'm using NIS, and I'm
setting access perms based on this - so it may need serious hacking if
your environment is totally different.

If anyone is interested, I can tar up all of the scripts and send them
out. There's nothing approaching documentation for it, but I can
probably give limited help to anyone who has questions.

lemme know.

-C