Subject: Netatalk support in Samba.

From: Ralph Zorll <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 12:57:16 +0200

Hello, 

many of you seem to use Netatalk together with Samba on the same server. So
perhaps you are familiar with the following:

Before compiling the samba 2.0.x sources, it is possible to configure the
package with the option "--with-netatalk", which seems to activate
experimental Netatalk support in Samba. Unfortunately I couldn't find any
usefull information in the Samba documentation, related newsgroups etc. on
what this support is supposed to do.

In the sources of Samba, all I found was one file called "netatalk.c"
containing several functions whose purpose seems to be the management of the
resource fork, that  means when Apple files in Samba shares are changed by
Windows clients  Samba automatically takes care of the resource fork. As I
intend to offer shares on a Linux server to Windows clients as well as Apple
clients, for me this would be a usefull feature. But I couldn't find any
other files in the Samba source tree, where those  functions are called.
Though my C knowledge is pretty limited, I got the impression, that even if I
get those functions compiled, they are never used by Samba.

Do you know how the experimental Netatalk support in Samba is supposed to work,
wether it makes sense to use it and what I have to do to get it working?

Any answers/hints would be greatly appreciated.

Ralph

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From: Matthew Keller <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 09:17:45 -0400

Your analysis was correct, it's nearly all "resource fork" related, so
that Windows users accessing "Mac" files won't "munge" the resource fork
data when moving "Mac" files around. And such. I'm in the process of a
much more elaborate set for Samba, that will hopefully allow locking to
work better over both of the products. The Samba Group is in the mist of
redesigning the Samba locking infrastructure, so I'm kind of on hold
until they get their structure finalized.

-- 

 Matthew Keller
 WebMaster & Lead Programmer/Analyst
 Distributed Computing/Telemedia
 Information Services Division
 State University of New York at Potsdam
 
 Website: http://mattwork.potsdam.edu/
 PGP: http://mattwork.potsdam.edu/crypto/
 Webcam:  http://webcam.mattwork.potsdam.edu:85/

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From: Chip Mefford <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 09:36:18 -0400 (EWT)

Hi Matthew;

This is pretty interesting. 

How functional is netatalk.c with samba 2.0.x ? 

On Fri, 6 Oct 2000, Matthew Keller wrote:

MK> 
MK> 	Your analysis was correct, it's nearly all "resource fork"
MK>     related, so
MK>     that Windows users accessing "Mac" files won't "munge" the
MK>     resource fork
MK>     data when moving "Mac" files around. And such. I'm in the process

>snip

---

From: Matthew Keller <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 09:41:54 -0400

For what's there, it functions fine. As someone else mentioned, it
doesn't DO much at this point- It's very elementary "check to see if
there is a .AppleDouble "resource file" for the given file, and if you
copy, move, delete or rename it, make sure the .AppleDouble "resource
file" get's copied/moved/renamed/deleted with it." 

-- 

 Matthew Keller