samba - Mar 2015 - Query if pre-allocation can be turned off from Windows Server / PC to SAMBA share

Morning All
We have an older transcode application that uses watch folders. it checks in
every 10 seconds to watch folder. if it sees a new file, it will monitor it to
see when it will stop growing and 30 seconds later pick it up for transcoding /
encoding. Design was to have uploads to watch folder from PC and MACs. I wanted
to know if there was a way to turn off pre-allocation when copying from a
Windows PC to a samba share? I sense it cannot as Windows Explorer seems to
default to pre-allocation before copying.  We are running RHEL  2.6.32, SAMBA
4.1.14 and GPFS as the filesystem.
We have performed tests using NFS and by default it grows files. I know the
protocols are different.
I sense this is a windows problem and not samba and just need to rule it out.
creany

On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 09:07:08AM +1100, Michael Crean
wrote:
> Morning All
> We have an older transcode application that uses watch folders. it checks
in every 10 seconds to watch folder. if it sees a new file, it will monitor it
to see when it will stop growing and 30 seconds later pick it up for transcoding
/ encoding. Design was to have uploads to watch folder from PC and MACs. I
wanted to know if there was a way to turn off pre-allocation when copying from a
Windows PC to a samba share? I sense it cannot as Windows Explorer seems to
default to pre-allocation before copying.  We are running RHEL  2.6.32, SAMBA
4.1.14 and GPFS as the filesystem.
> We have performed tests using NFS and by default it grows files. I know the
protocols are different.
> I sense this is a windows problem and not samba and just need to rule it
out.
> creany 
Try setting "strict allocate = false". Might do the trick.

On Mon, Mar 09, 2015 at 03:47:22PM -0700, Jeremy Allison
wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 09:07:08AM +1100, Michael Crean wrote:
> > Morning All
> > We have an older transcode application that uses watch folders. it
checks in every 10 seconds to watch folder. if it sees a new file, it will
monitor it to see when it will stop growing and 30 seconds later pick it up for
transcoding / encoding. Design was to have uploads to watch folder from PC and
MACs. I wanted to know if there was a way to turn off pre-allocation when
copying from a Windows PC to a samba share? I sense it cannot as Windows
Explorer seems to default to pre-allocation before copying.  We are running RHEL
2.6.32, SAMBA 4.1.14 and GPFS as the filesystem.
> > We have performed tests using NFS and by default it grows files. I
know the protocols are different.
> > I sense this is a windows problem and not samba and just need to rule
it out.
> > creany 
> 
> Try setting "strict allocate = false". Might do the trick.
Just to understand the problem: Why would preallocation be an issue here?
4.1.14 already implemnts the proper prealloc call to GPFS, and that
avoids the fallback on the client side where the client would try to
allocate through write requests.

Christof