Subject: files lost on linux fileserver running samba and netatalk

From: "harry" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 16:31:37 +0200

We are running a small network of 8 Macs and 5 Wintels. The fileserver is a
linux suse 6.3 pc, where samba 2.0.6 and the latest version of
netatalk&asun(1.42b) is installed.
A couple of times we noticed, that files in directories vanished.
Is there any known issue about this? I've scanned the mailinglist and found
no mail about that, so it may be a config-problem. The install and
config-work was done by an external, so I cannot provide more detailed info
for the moment.

H. Enke

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From: "Michael R. Jinks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 10:06:50 -0500

There are lots of things that can cause files to _appear_ to vanish; most 
common is user error, probably next in line is unexpected reboot without a
filesystem sync.  Neither has anything to do with Samba or NetAtalk but I
mention them because they're more likely explainations.

For the files that have disappeared, were they ever verified as being in the
filesystem by means other than the sharing process that wrote them?  In other
words, if I saved a file via NetAtalk to /foo/bar/file.txt, did that file
appear in an ls at the console (for example)?

Do files disappear after having been written with Samba, with NetAtalk, or
both?  Do you share any of the same volumes via both services?

Can the problem be reproduced?

-m

-- 
Michael Jinks, IB
Systems Administrator, Chicago Center for Computational Psychology
finger [email-masked] for public key
A guiding voice for all humanity: http://www.yellow5.com/pokey/

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From: Dejan Muhamedagic <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 20:48:55 +0200

Hello,

> netatalk&asun(1.42b) is installed.

Is this the very old version?  Or is it 1.4b2+asun2.1.3?

> config-work was done by an external, so I cannot provide more detailed info

This kind of thing sounds way too serious.  There were actually a
few reports about "vanishing files" on the list.  Recently, it has
happened in the company which I know.  The directory with 4GB
worth of data was gone.  However, it was not clear was that a user
error.  I have to say that UNIX (and Linux) doesn't do things like
that unless something else (like panic) happens.  Even then the
files should be all right, but I think that there are times when
ext2fs can fail.  From your description it looks like this was not
the case.  And most probably it is not a configuration problem.
The best guess I can offer is that it was a user error.  Probably
unintentional.  It would be very helpful if you can give more
information about the nature of files, how they were created, in
which way they vanished, the status of the filesystem where they
reside, and if there has been anything reported through syslog.

Best regards,

Dejan