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davecom · Mar 14, 2004, 07:05 PM

Using SMB on XP as Server has proved horrible. It doesn't let me copy over many of my files because of character complaints. And I want to backup several gigabytes. Has anybody gotten a free NFS or AFP file server on XP working?

Macola · Mar 14, 2004, 07:09 PM

I may be missing something, but why not just use Windows file sharing if all you're doing is backing up? You would still connect from your Mac using SMB, of course.

davecom · Mar 14, 2004, 07:14 PM

Originally posted by Macola:
I may be missing something, but why not just use Windows file sharing if all you're doing is backing up? You would still connect from your Mac using SMB, of course.

Because as I said it has issues with characters in many of my files and it stops the entire copying process due to its issues.

ghporter · Mar 14, 2004, 07:53 PM

Can you elaborate on your "character issues?" Unless you're talking about a huge number of file names, you can simply rename your files (before you try to copy them to the server) with something that neither Samba nor Windows complains about.

davecom · Mar 14, 2004, 08:03 PM

Originally posted by GHPorter:
Can you elaborate on your "character issues?" Unless you're talking about a huge number of file names, you can simply rename your files (before you try to copy them to the server) with something that neither Samba nor Windows complains about.

As I also said in my first post, I am talking about a huge number of files with issues. You guys are trying to be helpful, I know, but you should really read first posts more carefully. Maybe I should be more verbose:
I have a Windows Server using the built in SMB server. I have a Mac OS X 10.3.2 client that connect to it. It has a lot of files that have issues because the Windows machine cannot accept its characters and this stops the entire file transfer of several gigabytes of information. I would like to either:
A)Get SMB working better
B)Get a Free AFP server for the Windows Machine
C)Get a Free NFS server for the Windows Machine
Any ideas?

larkost · Mar 15, 2004, 08:33 AM

Moving to a different connection method might not solve the character issues, the problem might be that NTFS does not like those characters, and you are SOL in moving it intact to the windows box.

You might be able to make it work by using a disk image, but at several gigs this is going to be problematic at best. I would generally advise trying a different approach.

If you absolutely have to try a different protocol, try OpenAFS.

Macola · 10:27 AM

I think it is, in fact, protocol-independent as larkost suggested. One of my clients had this problem and they were running Win2K server with the MS AFP protocol installed. The only solution I found (not perfect, but it works) was to use MacNames

However, in their situation, the Windows box was being used as a file server, so MacNames made sense. I don't think it will help for you, since your problem is during file transfer.

Edit: I tried moving some files over to my XP Pro box and found the same problem that you had...originally, I thought I hadn't run into this issue before, but that's because of a difference in what constitutes illegal characters in FAT and NTFS filesystems.

Scarpa · Mar 15, 2004, 12:57 PM

You're running into a filesystem problem, not a file sharing protocol problem.

Either fix the filenames for find another method to store your files.

ghporter · Mar 15, 2004, 05:26 PM

Originally posted by davecom:
As I also said in my first post, I am talking about a huge number of files with issues. You guys are trying to be helpful, I know, but you should really read first posts more carefully.

Respectfully, you said "gigabytes," not "thousands of files," so I aimed for the middle-many large files. Sorry that wasn't helpful.

I have to agree with larkost, Macola, and Scarpa, though-it's the file system, not a problem with the server. Since you haven't mentioned what kind of character problem you're having (NTFS is not friendly to a number of non-ASCII character sets), I can't advise which of the options you mentioned would be your best solution, if any of them will work at all.

davecom · Mar 15, 2004, 05:37 PM

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. I'm thinking now that probably the best thing to do would be to make a big disk image and just transfer it like that.

We really should be beyond illegal characters in file names in this day and age, but alas, such is life.

OpenAFS looks exciting, but I'm not too keen on installing something kernel level on my Mac OS X machine.