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Samba, Upgrade to Write Capabilities...

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Hi;

I'm running my personal computer as a file server on our LAN. Now not all of the users on this LAN run Linux. Several machines are Win XP. I have my system sharing files with write capabilities. But that means that even when a user is browsing the files, XP is allowed to go in and put those pesky thumbs.db files in all my folders. which is just ANNOYING! Now a solution to this, I think is to make the user have read-only privileges unless they intend to write to the drive. thus preventing XP from doing it on it's own.

Now one way I could accomplish this is to change the smb.conf file to allow network logins that aren't local user names. Then have two separate logins. A restricted and a writeable, at least I believe I can do that.

The pain I see in this is that the user would have to know in advance wether they where to write to the drive. because the license seems to stick as long as both the server and the client machine are on the network. therefore changing the log-in because you want to write. then changing back when your done. just seems messy...

What I would prefer is to have the samba login read-only and then if the user attempts to write to the drive, prompt for a write password. then drop back to read mode after write is complete.

Otherwise it would be nice if I could just tell my server to not allow any files to be written with the name "Thumbs.db"

I don't know, but I do know I can't control weather thumbnail caching is enabled on every XP computer my file system comes in contact with, and I am getting tired of deleting the lil' bastards.....

Any Ideas?
Thanks;
Teddy B

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Samba, Upgrade to Write

Submitted by pinniped on Wed, 2007-10-10 16:55.

You can run a cron job to exterminate those thumb.db files. Any WinDos system is an unbelievable heap of crap - are you sure that blocking a write will have any good effects or will XP give you the blue screen or otherwise hang. I think your best bet is to dig for the controls (if they exist) to tell XP to not create those stupid files. Personally, I just avoid Microsoft garbage because I waste too much time trying to get things to behave sensibly and the next 'patch' screws it all up.

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Samba, Upgrade to Write

Submitted by TeddieeB on Wed, 2007-10-10 18:55.

Hmmmm, I know what you mean about WinBlowz.

You can shut the annoying function off by turning of thumbnail caching in the folder options. but like I said, the computers connecting aren't mine so I can't really do that.

I don't know if blocking write will keep windows from throwing a B/F but I think it should have no ill effects.

on the topic of the cron, I hadn't thought about that. Now we're talking about like 500GB of data though. Seems like that kind of a process would kill resources for an extend period of time, going through all the files and deleting the crap....

Thanks;
Teddy B

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Samba, Upgrade to Write

Submitted by pinniped on Thu, 2007-10-11 02:15.

The only other 'solution' I can think of is to hack the kernel so that some error is thrown whenever an attempt is made to create a file named 'thumbs.db'. Signal that the permissions are wrong... hehehe. It's a filthy hack, but it should be OK.

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Samba, Upgrade to Write

Submitted by TeddieeB on Thu, 2007-10-11 14:12.

hehe, I like the idea myself.

I am, however between noob to maybe an intermediate user, and don't know how to go about such a task,

Can you tell me where to start, maybe some documetation, or a directory/file I would use for such.

At the very least, if you where looking for such information on a engine, what terms would you suggest in the search..

Thanks for the help;
Teddy B

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Samba, Upgrade to Write

Submitted by pinniped on Thu, 2007-10-11 16:58.

Hmm... then again, it's probably better to edit Samba to reject requests to create 'thumbs.db' rather than the kernel. I'd suggest visiting the Samba forums (should be links from www.samba.org) and asking if such a configuration option exists or if someone needs to code it in. Any alterations to the code should be left to a programmer.

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