Subject: Netatalk and the Quark Monster..

From: Brent Ellis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 18:08:56 -0400

I am a sysadmin for an advertising agency in boston and I am running
into some big problems with our new linux servers.  One is losing
files.  I am running netatalk1.4b2 with asun2.1.3..  I do not think it
is netatalk or even the linux server, I suspect Quark 4.1 but entire
directories have been found empty.  This amounts to gigs of data and we
can't seem to fix it.  I am wondering if anyone else has come across a
similar problem..

Specs
Dell Redhat 6.2 server
dual 533
100gb raid5
netatalk 1.4b2 with asun2.1.3

Macs
Mostly G4s with OS9.04

Quark
Xpress v4.1 and 4.11

Thanks for any help you can give..
-Brent

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From: "Michael Cartmel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 09:42:49 +1100

I had a similar problem with our server here a while ago...

Some people were complaining that files were going missing on the Mac but
they were still visible in Samba on the PC's. Seems the problem was due to a
combination of file name length and path depth. I'm not sure about the file
name size/depth limitations, but everyone has started using short names and
haven't had any problems since....

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From: Marcus Radich <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 10:44:50 +1200

Upgrade to netatalk pre214-37b, and compile with DFLOCKS options for 
213 style file locking, and it works a treat.

-- 
========================================================

"Always ask the question, never assume the answer."
		Marcus Radich 1999

========================================================

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From: Harry Zink/Netatalk List <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 02:51:05 -0700

on 9/11/00 3:08 PM, Brent Ellis at [email-masked] wrote:

> I do not think it
> is netatalk or even the linux server

Unfortunately, it appears to *BE* Linux or the netatalk server - others have
reported these kind of incidents, and I have experienced it myself in the
meantime.

The best common denominator I could figure out by now is that if a Mac
crashes while writing to the server, the event wipes out the directory it
was writing to.

> I suspect Quark 4.1 but entire
> directories have been found empty.

Nope, it's not Quark's fault - you describe the exact symptons others have
had.

My question - was the money saved by using Linux/netatalk, or the point you
were trying to make about alternate platforms worth the gigs of data that
were lost?

Harry

-- 
CAN'T SEE MAC IN CHOOSER UNDER RedHat 6.2: If you get errors starting
AppleTalk under RedHat 6.2 and Mandrake 7.1, you need to manually add "alias
net-pf-5 appletalk" to your /etc/conf.modules file.

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From: Harry Zink/Netatalk List <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 02:52:48 -0700

> 213 style file locking, and it works a treat.

Unfortunately, that's what I was running on a system that I recently lost 15
gigs of backed up data on... That does not seem to be the issue.

Harry

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From: "Brent Ellis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 13:04:30 -0400

Well.  I do have another machine that has performed without a hitch running
at our other location the only difference I found was that the other
location is not using Quark.  And Quark does have some confirmed networking
bugs, ie it will destroy collected files if you cancel in the middle of a
file collect.

In response to the last comment, this is a better solution than the one we
had before.  Thanks though.. Maybe we will consider an NFS solution.