File Protocol - Mac OS X compability problems with smb?

[William N]

Hi,

 

I have tried to set up unRAID in a Mac environment. Now that the share-issue is solved (4.2) - another problem evolved. When trying to copy some of my libraries of photos and music - it seems that "too long filenames" or "unallowed characters" have emerged. My guess: smb as file protocol has severe limitations compared to afp - "Apple File Protocol"?

 

Question: is it possible to change from smb to another format? If not - this is a MAJOR feature request from me as well as the Mac community as a whole... Please don't ask me to use shorter file names or file names without question marks etc. That is not a solution.

[orb]

The Mac community as a whole ? I am part of it, and a happy unRAID user as well.

[limetech]

Please give me examples of problematic file names.

[Billped]

It seems that Apple has some recognized limitations for how it works with SMB, not the other way around.

 

Check out: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106471

 

 

Bill

[William N]

Please give me examples of problematic file names.

 

One example: Anything with a question mark.

[William N]

It seems that Apple has some recognized limitations for how it works with SMB, not the other way around.

 

Check out: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106471

 

 

Bill

 

Well - this is a very basic document describing how to connect to an SMB-disk. That's no problem. My problem is that some file names that work in afp does not work within smb. Or the problem lies elsewhere. Anyway, instead of arguing what format is the best - please don't flame this thread - other options (to unRAID) on the market like for instance ReadyNAS from infrat/Netgear, have the possibility to choose a variety of file protocols. Does unRAID have this option? Could it possibly be a future feature? Until then - does anyone have a workaround which is not based on "choose shorter names"? (I have many many many files - it's simply not an option to rename)

[Billped]

You can check out the current wish-list here.  Tom does a good job of soliciting input regarding the priority of each feature request and working on them in that order.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=266.0

 

NFS support, for example, is on the list.

 

I did a bit of reading on AFP and for Apple users it sounds like a huge improvement over NFS and Samba/CIFS, but I have no idea what the development and support costs would be and it is way behind in the key measure of popularity.  Do solutions such as Infrant and Thecus offer AFP?

 

 

Bill

[limetech]

Yes there is a linux implementation of AFP.  It's something we would like to implement; however, the file name problems may be a bug, so I would like to see examples of names that are giving you trouble.

[William N]

Yes there is a linux implementation of AFP.  It's something we would like to implement; however, the file name problems may be a bug, so I would like to see examples of names that are giving you trouble.

 

"01-BI?" is one example. (No "-signs in file name...) "20030814-? Skåne och Amsterdam" is another. Anything with a questionmark seems to be problematic...

 

[cmhardwick]

that's a standard exclusion for "legal" filenames in the windows world.

 

can't contain \ / : * ? " < > | mainly because most of these are special characters with specific functions. * and ? are both wildcard characters, for example.

[William N]

that's a standard exclusion for "legal" filenames in the windows world.

 

can't contain \ / : * ? " < > | mainly because most of these are special characters with specific functions. * and ? are both wildcard characters, for example.

 

Yes. And since such restrictions do not exist in the Mac OS X world with AFP - smb is a pretty useless protocol. Or? Any file transfer including more than a handful files, will lead to interrupted file transfer. Hence - please include afp support and expand the market for unRAID server to the mac community...! Or tell me there is a simple solution or that I have misunderstood something...

[Billped]

Most of the forbidden characters from the Windows world are also forbidden in the Linux world.  Does AFP mask that by character substitution?

 

 

Bill

[Joe L.]

Most of the forbidden characters from the Windows world are also forbidden in the Linux world.  Does AFP mask that by character substitution?

 

 

Bill

I may not be up to date with current versions of Linux, but from my UNIX security auditing days (going back many years) there were only two characters that were not allowed in unix/Linux file names.  They were the forward slash "/" since it was used to delimit directory names, and the "null" character (0x000), since it represented the end of the strings forming the file and directory names.

 

Now, unicode and extended character set support may have changed some things, but I'll bet Linux supports more characters than you might expect and that the two characters I mentioned are still the only forbidden characters in Linux for file and directory names. 

 

Yes, some characters are special to the shell and must be escaped (with a backslash) or quoted if used in a file or directory name, but they are allowed.  You can have a file name with a question mark within it, or a backslash, or an asterisk, or a pound sign, or a dash, or even unprintable characters.  It might be harder to use those names in shell scripts, but they are still legal names.

 

Joe L.

 

[orb]

I have a simple workaround, if you can live with it for now, I actually use it to encrypt my data on my unRAID server.

 

I just created an dmg image file that can grow, I mount it through the network  with samba, and write to it whatever I feel need the encryption, I also use it for usb drives etc.

 

You don't need to encrypt, but you can, it is also a very good solution for multiuser, one image for each user, each is protected, nobody can read the others files...

 

 

It's working pretty well, no need to afp for me

 

 

[William N]

I have a simple workaround, if you can live with it for now, I actually use it to encrypt my data on my unRAID server.

I just created an dmg image file that can grow, I mount it through the network  with samba, and write to it whatever I feel need the encryption, I also use it for usb drives etc.

You don't need to encrypt, but you can, it is also a very good solution for multiuser, one image for each user, each is protected, nobody can read the others files...

It's working pretty well, no need to afp for me

 

Interesting idea. Might try it for other purposes. However - I want the machine to work seamless with OS X. It doesn't, does it? (As long as afp is not supported)

 

So if the people behind unRAID want the expanding Mac Community to use unRAID, I guess the way to go is to implement afp-support. Or am I wrong? (I should have had my suspicions since a search on these forums on "OS X" give VERY scarce results compared with many other forums...)

[orb]

It is as seamless as it can be, as you can make an alias to the virtual drive and it will automount the samba share when necessary.

 

But, I do use unRAID with my 3 Mac, and with no problem, it might be because I would never use some characters in my filename.

[Billped]

I have a simple workaround, if you can live with it for now, I actually use it to encrypt my data on my unRAID server.

I just created an dmg image file that can grow, I mount it through the network  with samba, and write to it whatever I feel need the encryption, I also use it for usb drives etc.

You don't need to encrypt, but you can, it is also a very good solution for multiuser, one image for each user, each is protected, nobody can read the others files...

It's working pretty well, no need to afp for me

 

Interesting idea. Might try it for other purposes. However - I want the machine to work seamless with OS X. It doesn't, does it? (As long as afp is not supported)

 

So if the people behind unRAID want the expanding Mac Community to use unRAID, I guess the way to go is to implement afp-support. Or am I wrong? (I should have had my suspicions since a search on these forums on "OS X" give VERY scarce results compared with many other forums...)

 

I think the people behind Unraid have limited resources and are looking to optimize those resources - do the best they can for the most people possible.  That usually means catering to the 97%, not the 3% (per recent IDC figures - Apple growth is 3X the average, however).

 

That isn't a dig on Mac or OS X folks at all, btw, it is reality.

 

If indeed the OS X community would like to jump onto the Unraid bandwagon but cannot due to the lack of AFP support, perhaps you can help coordinate participation in the implementation process or at least with the unit testing?  No, Unraid isn't a community project, but there could possibly be something worked out.

 

 

Bill

[limetech]

We are very much interested in supporting the OS X folks.  I have a buddy in the video editing business who uses unRAID for video projects.  His shop is all Final Cut pro.  I'll try to get over there soon to see how to integrate the linux AFP support.

 

A question - how well supported is NFS in OS X?

[orb]

It is supported OK.

http://www.bresink.com/osx/181043/Docs-en/WhatIs.html

[toonz]

I'm an OSX user at home too and would dearly love to have AFP support.

Willing to do some testing etc if you'd like. Would definitely be faster than SMB.

 

Currently running SSH on unRAID and mounting the SSH drive using MacFusion and get full 11MB/sec (over wireless 'n'), over SMB this pushes about 2MB/sec!

[cwr]

i'm an osx user and have been for years, in full osx environments afp may be useful, but i don't know anyone who doesnt have a windows box at home (even the osx fanboys use windows for games..), SMB just seems to be more common

 

if you add afp support, have a button on the GUI so we can unload it if it will be unused, so the unraid server doesn't waste memory on it

[William N]

It is as seamless as it can be, as you can make an alias to the virtual drive and it will automount the samba share when necessary.

 

But, I do use unRAID with my 3 Mac, and with no problem, it might be because I would never use some characters in my filename.

 

Sorry - but that's just an outright stupid claim. If it doesnt work with iTunes and iPhoto - then it's simply NOT seamless. When my libraries of iPhoto and iTunes are saved in the smb-area. It doesn't work. Seamless?

 

Also - sorry to inform you that there is a world - pretty big one - outside the US, where a lot of characters are used that are outside the US standard A-Z. To say that we should stop using characters like that - is like you should try giving filenames without the characters "e", "s", and "t". Try that for a while and go figure for how long you would consider that seamless. In this case - however, it is not characters like å, ä or ö giving problems, but ?, / etc. That is NOT a "feature" of smb. That is a restriction and problem.

[orb]

I don't think that you will go really far with that kind of behaviour, calling me stupid when I'm just trying to give you workaround for your current situation.

I just happen not to be American, but French, and my girlfriend is Finnish, so we have plenty of é è ê à ä etc. and I also use iTunes through unRAID.

I just made a éèêàä folder on my unRAID, without any problem, and yes Samba doesn't like ? /, but welcome to the Windows world, you see there is pretty big world outside the Mac world, and Unix doesn't really like / in name either, that is something to live with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename#Reserved_characters_and_words

 

And if you still want to use filename just as on your Mac, use a virtual drive instead.

[William N]

calling me stupid

 

Sorry. Did not mean to insult you. I referred to the claim "seamless" as stupid. Not you - since you obviously are trying to help out. I'm just kinda frustrated... :-) The fix you refer to with virtual drives does not feel very clean. I will have to look for afp support elsewhere. Does anyone have any advice where to look? (I already have a ReadyNAS from Infrant/Netgear. They are great - but only have four drives. I need something with many more drives...

[orb]

You can look at Freenas, it does AFP and all, but is not as flexible as unRAID.