Networked Hard Drives

Dirk Paul Flach wrote:
> At 19:46 07-02-05, J. P. Doughtie wrote:
>
>>> http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?prid=640&scid=43
>>>
>>> Dirk Paul
>>
>>
>> This unit appears not to support Macintosh based on the User's Guide
>> and website documentation. Are you using this on a Macintosh network?
>
>
> No, and actually I'm not the one who configured it. Since I thought it
> was configured through a web interface and uses plain TCP/IP, I didn't
> expect any problems, but maybe I was too quick. Sorry for the confusion.
>

According to the Users Guide (Appendix E) at the link above, it uses
SMB, the Windows file sharing protocol. Doesn't Mac OS X support
mounting remote drives via SMB?

Does anyone who knows Samba know if it has client side as well as server
side support (i.e. can you mount SMB as well as serve it), or does it,
like netatalk for AFP, lack client side support?

> DP
>

--
Paul Schinder
schinderpobox.com

At 6:31 AM -0800 2/8/05, Ian Downie wrote:
>There's no obvious reason why the Linksys NSL-U2 would not work in a
>Mac network as it makes your hard disk appear as an SMB share.

One of the coolest things about the NSL-U2 is that it runs an
embedded version of Linux, I think stored on internal flash memory.
It has a very active developer (hacking) community - you can run
pretty much anything you can imagine on it.

http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

--
Andrew Laurence
atlaurenuci.edu

On 2/8/05 11:32 AM, "Paul Schinder" <schinderpobox.com> wrote:

>> No, and actually I'm not the one who configured it. Since I thought it
>> was configured through a web interface and uses plain TCP/IP, I didn't
>> expect any problems, but maybe I was too quick. Sorry for the confusion.
>>
>
> According to the Users Guide (Appendix E) at the link above, it uses
> SMB, the Windows file sharing protocol. Doesn't Mac OS X support
> mounting remote drives via SMB?

It has for many years now.

>
> Does anyone who knows Samba know if it has client side as well as server
> side support (i.e. can you mount SMB as well as serve it), or does it,
> like netatalk for AFP, lack client side support?

Um, yeah, it's like an integral feature of Samba and Mac OS X's
implementation of Samba.

john

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

I have an NSLU2 at home, and it does work with Macintoshes. I have been very
happy with it, especially considering the low price (less than $80 when I
bought it). I access it from two different Macs (G4 and Mini) as well as a
PC running Windows 2000. I originally set it up from the PC, and that may be
why they don't describe it as "Mac compatible." I bet you could configure it
entirely using TCP/IP, but they provide a PC-based application for quick and
easy initial setup. So it should work fine for Macs, but you may not get
much in the way of tech support from the vendor (which is usually the case
anyway, in my experience).

One thing to bear in mind is that it will format the attached hard drive
using the ext3 file system (because the NLSU2 itself runs Linux). Make sure
your drive is empty (of anything you want to save) before attaching it to
the NSLU2. That also means you can't just unplug the hard drives later on
from the NSLU2 and plug them into any computer to read their contents
directly (at least, it won't work on Windows computers without special
drivers -- not sure how the Mac handles ext3).

Also, it should be pointed out that the second hard drive, if you attach
one, can only be used to mirror the primary drive. So, for example, if you
attach two 80 MB drives, you'll only have 80 MB of storage, not 160 MB.
They're also a bit finicky about what drives you use apparently. The vendor
encourages using Maxtor. I'm using Western Digital 120 MB drive with no
problems, though. It's an awesome device, but be aware of the limitations
from the outset.

  Brett Holt

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Schinder [mailto:schinderpobox.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 12:33 PM
> To: tidbits-talktidbits.com
> Subject: Re: Networked Hard Drives

> According to the Users Guide (Appendix E) at the link above, it uses
> SMB, the Windows file sharing protocol. Doesn't Mac OS X support
> mounting remote drives via SMB?

Sure. You may be able to browse to such a network drive but I generally
prefer using Connect to Server.

smb://[hostname or ip of server]/[sharename]
Examples
smb://192.168.0.12/backup
smb://thebridemac2.local/backup

If you leave off the share name, you should get a window with a pulldown
menu of all the available shares. You can also use "cifs://" instead of
"smb://" I guess calling the protocol CIFS is more accurate.

> Does anyone who knows Samba know if it has client side as
> well as server
> side support (i.e. can you mount SMB as well as serve it), or
> does it,
> like netatalk for AFP, lack client side support?

I'm not sure what the "it" is in this case. Are you wondering if the Samba
project includes client tools as well as serving tools? It does, however
having the Samba serving software installed does not automatically mean the
software for mounting shares is also installed. I believe when OS X mounts
Windows (or Samba) shares, a lot of the code comes from the Samba project.

http://www.samba.org

At 6:31 AM -0800 2/8/05, Ian Downie wrote:
>In both cases, the hard disks must be formatted ext3 though I read one
>report that a small DOS formatted disk could be used. I believe that
>Mac OS X can read an ext3 formatted disk which is directly connected to
>it but can't verify that. When the disk is mounted by the NSL as an SMB
>share, it does not matter what filing system is used apart from
>possible problems with file names which conflict with the convention on
>the native file system.

I wonder if anyone would know if the old (or maybe new) trick for
avoiding problems when having OS X utilize a non-OS X file system of
just placing a native disk image on the non-native file system would
work with a networking setup like this? It obviously should work
with one computer accessing the image, but what about two or more?

Nick

http://www.inmff.net

A few points about the Linksys NSLU2.

1) Linksys users know by now that Linksys never acknowledges the existence of the Mac, always includes awful Windows wizard applications to configure their devices yet always lists "alternative" web-based configuration instructions in their manuals (which you can download before you buy).

2) The NSLU2 works just fine with the Mac. As others have said, it serves your disks as SMB (a.k.a. Samba) volumes which the Mac OS can read just fine.

3) It formats your drives using the Linux ext3 format. This means that Mac OS X cannot read them directly if you unplug them from the NSLU2 and plug them into your Mac. In other words, if your NSLU2 fails, you cannot read these drives without access to another NSLU2 or Linux box. Consider this carefully in your backup strategy.

4) Contrary to what others have stated, the NSLU2 supports two drives of up to 300 GB for a total of 600 GB online. It will optionally backup drive 1 onto drive 2 on a periodic schedule if you tell it to but the choice is yours. Thus you can have up to 600 GB of storage (per NSLU2) or up to 300 GB if you choose to to have it backup the drive.

There is a problem using Retrospect which I will report in a separate message.

Retrospect 6.0 has a problem backing up to SMB (a.k.a Samba) servers such as those on NSLU2 or Buffalo devices. Despite EMC/Dantz' claims to have removed all 2 GB size limits, Retrospect is unable to write backup files larger than 2 GB to such volumes.

Trying to create a backup leads to an immediate error message:

Can't add that much data to backup set.

The limit is 2.0 G.

Note that it it quite possible to copy files much larger than this to the drive: the problem is peculiar to Retrospect.

See the following thread that refers to the problem on both NSLU2 and Buffalo servers. <http://forums.dantz.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=Retro6&Number=49347>

If you would like to report this error to EMC/Dantz, they will charge you $70 for the privilege of doing so. If you're hoping to use Retrospect in this way, beware!

Quoting kevinp <kevinpaztecfreenet.org>:

> 3) It formats your drives using the Linux ext3 format. This means
> that Mac OS X cannot read them directly if you unplug them from the
> NSLU2 and plug them into your Mac. In other words, if your NSLU2
> fails, you cannot read these drives without access to another NSLU2
> or Linux box. Consider this carefully in your backup strategy.

Ext3 is a journaled version of Ext2 and can be read (and written, without
journaling) by Ext2 drivers. There is an open source project on Source Forge
that allows reading of Ext2 drives on Mac OS X:

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/>

I wouldn't use it for a live filesystem, but to recover from another
system I'd sure give it a try.

Kevin

> Retrospect 6.0 has a problem backing up to SMB (a.k.a Samba) servers
> such as those on NSLU2 or Buffalo devices. Despite EMC/Dantz' claims
> to have removed all 2 GB size limits, Retrospect is unable to write
> backup files larger than 2 GB to such volumes.

Backing up to a Win 2003 server, I've run into the 2 GB limit before.
In my case, it was a limit of the AFP and SMB protocols. I am able to
skirt around this limitation by setting up FTP on the Win 2003 box and
using Retrospect to back up to FTP. When backing up to FTP, Retrospect
will slice the backup into sub 2gb pieces. Dantz probably has removed
the limit, but in the case of AFP, it is a limit of the protocol. Not
sure on SMB, could just be Microsoft's implementation.

Unfortunately, it would appear as through the NSLU2 does not support
FTP. That is a real shame as the NSLU2's more expensive siblings, the
EFG120 and EFG250, both do. They just didn't include it as a feature
for the NSLU2. More shameful still, is the fact that the EFG120 and
EFG250 are both WAY over priced.

On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 1:03 pm -0800, James White wrote:

>Unfortunately, it would appear as through the NSLU2 does not support
>FTP. That is a real shame as the NSLU2's more expensive siblings, the
>EFG120 and EFG250, both do. They just didn't include it as a feature
>for the NSLU2. More shameful still, is the fact that the EFG120 and
>EFG250 are both WAY over priced.

It looks like the NSLU2-Linux Dev. group may provide a way round that;
from the FAQ at

<http://www.nslu2-linux.org/>:

> 7. Where is ftpd or other (standard linux) utilities?
>
>The NSLU2 comes with a stripped down root filesystem. If what you need is
>in the original SnapGear sources, you can build it yourself easily. See
>HowTo Recipes for instructions. Or, you can download a binary image of a
>fairly complete root filesystem build from the NSLU2-Linux yahoo group
>(see romfs.tar.gz at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nslu2-linux/files/ ).
>Then, simply install the utilities that you require.

TimH

On 2/14/05 7:03 AM, "James White" <jamesrwhite2comcast.net> wrote:

>> Retrospect 6.0 has a problem backing up to SMB (a.k.a Samba) servers
>> such as those on NSLU2 or Buffalo devices. Despite EMC/Dantz' claims
>> to have removed all 2 GB size limits, Retrospect is unable to write
>> backup files larger than 2 GB to such volumes.
>
> Backing up to a Win 2003 server, I've run into the 2 GB limit before.
> In my case, it was a limit of the AFP and SMB protocols. I am able to
> skirt around this limitation by setting up FTP on the Win 2003 box and
> using Retrospect to back up to FTP. When backing up to FTP, Retrospect
> will slice the backup into sub 2gb pieces. Dantz probably has removed
> the limit, but in the case of AFP, it is a limit of the protocol. Not
> sure on SMB, could just be Microsoft's implementation.

Most non-Apple/non-ExtremeZIP implementations of AFP use older versions that
are locked to 2GB volume sizes. Microsoft Services For Macintosh is still,
even in Server 2003, using a version of AFP so old that it restricts you to
2GB and 31 character filenames.

Retrospect is only able to use SMB/AFP/FTP shares at the level the system
providing that service allows it to.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

--On February 14, 2005 5:03:17 AM -0800 James White
<jamesrwhite2comcast.net> wrote:

> Backing up to a Win 2003 server, I've run into the 2 GB limit before. In
> my case, it was a limit of the AFP and SMB protocols. I am able to skirt
> around this limitation by setting up FTP on the Win 2003 box and using
> Retrospect to back up to FTP. When backing up to FTP, Retrospect will
> slice the backup into sub 2gb pieces. Dantz probably has removed the
> limit, but in the case of AFP, it is a limit of the protocol. Not sure
> on SMB, could just be Microsoft's implementation.

AFP 3.0 and above support files larger than 4GB. If you use Windows 2003's
built in appletalk then this is a very old implementation and does not
support files over 2GB (it's the same version as was in NT 3.51).

On linux/bsd boxes you'll need netatalk 2.0 or greater to support the
larger file sizes.

<http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/2.0/htmldocs/>

The most versions of SMB, or CIFS also supports files larger than 2GB. I
know XP to Windows 2000 does from personal experience.

To transfer a file over 2GB all of the following must support the large
file size:

a) server file system
b) server network protocol implementation
c) client network protocol implementation
d) client file system

Additionally the application creating/reading/writing the file must support
large files.

So if you have an older implementation of AFP on the client side (i.e.
running old an old Mac OS), then even if you have the latest OS X server
you may not be able to transfer a 2GB file. Same for SMB/CIFS
implementations. I'm not sure what file sizes the client built into OS X
support.

Kevin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin van Haaren [mailto:kevinvanhaaren.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 5:25 PM
> To: tidbits-talktidbits.com
> Subject: Re: Networked Hard Drives

> AFP 3.0 and above support files larger than 4GB. If you use
> Windows 2003's
> built in appletalk then this is a very old implementation and
> does not
> support files over 2GB (it's the same version as was in NT 3.51).

I don't recall what version NT4 supported but I recall there was an
improvement made to AppleTalk support in Windows 2000 Server. Windows 2000
Server support AFP 2.2. I couldn't find a reference for 2003 Server so maybe
it's the same.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;814211

On 2/15/05 8:34 PM, "Wilcox, Curtis" <cwilcoxesm.rochester.edu> wrote:

>> AFP 3.0 and above support files larger than 4GB. If you use
>> Windows 2003's
>> built in appletalk then this is a very old implementation and
>> does not
>> support files over 2GB (it's the same version as was in NT 3.51).
>
> I don't recall what version NT4 supported but I recall there was an
> improvement made to AppleTalk support in Windows 2000 Server. Windows 2000
> Server support AFP 2.2. I couldn't find a reference for 2003 Server so maybe
> it's the same.
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;814211

It's the same. Windows 2000 allowed for AFP/IP instead of AFP/AT. From what
I can tell, Windows Server 2003 is unchanged.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

--On February 15, 2005 5:49:15 PM -0500 "Wilcox, Curtis"
<cwilcoxesm.rochester.edu> wrote:

>> AFP 3.0 and above support files larger than 4GB. If you use
>> Windows 2003's
>> built in appletalk then this is a very old implementation and
>> does not
>> support files over 2GB (it's the same version as was in NT 3.51).
>
> I don't recall what version NT4 supported but I recall there was an
> improvement made to AppleTalk support in Windows 2000 Server. Windows 2000
> Server support AFP 2.2. I couldn't find a reference for 2003 Server so
> maybe it's the same.
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;814211

Forgot about that. I think Windows 2003 AFP is the same as Win2K (we
stopped using it years ago, we use SMB SMB via Dave or the built-in OS X
client).

The feature is scheduled to be removed at some point, probably longhorn.
They make it harder to install with each version too.

On 2/16/05 11:10 AM, "John C. Welch" <jwelchbynkii.com> wrote:

>>> AFP 3.0 and above support files larger than 4GB. If you use
>>> Windows 2003's
>>> built in appletalk then this is a very old implementation and
>>> does not
>>> support files over 2GB (it's the same version as was in NT 3.51).
>>
>> I don't recall what version NT4 supported but I recall there was an
>> improvement made to AppleTalk support in Windows 2000 Server. Windows 2000
>> Server support AFP 2.2. I couldn't find a reference for 2003 Server so maybe
>> it's the same.
>> <http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;814211>
>
> It's the same. Windows 2000 allowed for AFP/IP instead of AFP/AT. From what
> I can tell, Windows Server 2003 is unchanged.

This is true. It is also one of the biggest bugaboos in networks with
exclusively Windows servers.

NT4 Server SFM (Services for Macintosh) provided both discovery and file
transfer via Appletalk. Windows 2000 Server SFM provides discovery over
AppleTalk, but file transfer over TCP/IP.

Many of us would like to eliminate AppleTalk from our networks, but as long
as Windows system administrators rely solely on Microsoft's Windows Server
Services for Macintosh, we are hamstrung in doing so because our users -
accustomed to browsing the network for servers - will not be able to find
the main file servers.

Both ExtremeZ-IP from GroupLogic and ADmit-Mac from Thursby eliminate the
need for Windows SFM, but they are also both expensive. (And AD-M is
labor-intensive to install in organizations with large installed bases of
Macs.)

On 2/17/05 8:37 AM, "Dan O'Donnell" <odonnellrand.org> wrote:

>
> Both ExtremeZ-IP from GroupLogic and ADmit-Mac from Thursby eliminate the
> need for Windows SFM, but they are also both expensive. (And AD-M is
> labor-intensive to install in organizations with large installed bases of
> Macs.)

If you have an open directory domain, try installing ADMitMac on the server,
and using that to broadcast the shares.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

Quoting "John C. Welch" <jwelchbynkii.com>:

>> On 2/17/05 8:37 AM, "Dan O'Donnell" <odonnellrand.org> wrote:
>>
>> Both ExtremeZ-IP from GroupLogic and ADmit-Mac from Thursby eliminate the
>> need for Windows SFM, but they are also both expensive. (And AD-M is
>> labor-intensive to install in organizations with large installed bases of
>> Macs.)
>
> If you have an open directory domain, try installing ADMitMac on the server,
> and using that to broadcast the shares.

Apple recently rolled out a section on its web site for enterprise level
integration of Mac OS X.

http://www.apple.com/itpro/

It includes a section on integrating Mac OS X with Active Directory:
http://www.apple.com/itpro/articles/adintegration/

On 2/21/05 12:44 PM, "kevinvanhaaren.net" <kevinvanhaaren.net> wrote:

>> If you have an open directory domain, try installing ADMitMac on the server,
>> and using that to broadcast the shares.
>
> Apple recently rolled out a section on its web site for enterprise level
> integration of Mac OS X.
>
> http://www.apple.com/itpro/
>
> It includes a section on integrating Mac OS X with Active Directory:
> http://www.apple.com/itpro/articles/adintegration/

Honestly, it's PR fluff, and once you get past the links to the excellent
articles on *other* sites, it's of little to no technical value whatsoever

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com