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Old 10-02-2009, 11:03 AM   #1
nublet
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Question case insensitive file systems... [possibly]


I have a problem, and I'm not sure how best to solve it.

I've a connection to a perforce server running on Windows, it has many file son it following the windows case insesitinve files namings ...
i.e.
I have direcoties
Blang\Code
blang\code
all which point to the same directory on a windows machine
now for various complicated reason we need a network drive that has a copy of the current tree, which is then shared on the local network via SMB

now I achive this by running a perforce sync as a clinet on the linux machine, this both populates the proxy and updates the network cache, however - here's the rub - the perforce proxy copes with the case differnces [well they both exist but there is no problems] but when it updates the network cache it creates duplicated directoies
as above ,
when these are viewed on the local machines Via smb - you get 2 file trees and windows chooses to show you the one that was created 1st - so you get missing files

now I've tired ciopfs [http://www.brain-dump.org/projects/ciopfs/] that sort of works OK, until I get a 'Transport endpoint is not connected' error from fuse [using the latest versions of both] this then mangles the machine into needing a reboot to gte it back operating :-(
if I run ciopfs in single thread mode - it works for much longer but then I get
32392 ? S 0:00 ulockmgr_server 7
32397 ? S 0:00 ulockmgr_server 7
32400 ? S 0:00 ulockmgr_server 7
and more - hundreds of them
this seems to slow the machine down until I start getting
bad file descriptor errors :-( and
ulockmgr_server: open file descriptors on exit

I can restart the ciopfs and recover but it's not a good solution

so my question is - what methods can I use to make sure my cache is popualted with a filetree that windows will be happy with, and not have duplicated directory names
 
Old 10-02-2009, 03:41 PM   #2
MBybee
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Have you tried using CIFS with your SAMBA share? http://linux.die.net/man/8/mount.cifs
You do need to do some specialized setup with the mounts and such, but it sounds like it might help.
 
Old 10-02-2009, 07:17 PM   #3
lutusp
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nublet View Post
I have a problem, and I'm not sure how best to solve it.

I've a connection to a perforce server running on Windows, it has many file son it following the windows case insesitinve files namings ...
i.e.
I have direcoties
Blang\Code
blang\code
all which point to the same directory on a windows machine
now for various complicated reason we need a network drive that has a copy of the current tree, which is then shared on the local network via SMB

now I achive this by running a perforce sync as a clinet on the linux machine, this both populates the proxy and updates the network cache, however - here's the rub - the perforce proxy copes with the case differnces [well they both exist but there is no problems] but when it updates the network cache it creates duplicated directoies
as above ,
when these are viewed on the local machines Via smb - you get 2 file trees and windows chooses to show you the one that was created 1st - so you get missing files

now I've tired ciopfs [http://www.brain-dump.org/projects/ciopfs/] that sort of works OK, until I get a 'Transport endpoint is not connected' error from fuse [using the latest versions of both] this then mangles the machine into needing a reboot to gte it back operating :-(
if I run ciopfs in single thread mode - it works for much longer but then I get
32392 ? S 0:00 ulockmgr_server 7
32397 ? S 0:00 ulockmgr_server 7
32400 ? S 0:00 ulockmgr_server 7
and more - hundreds of them
this seems to slow the machine down until I start getting
bad file descriptor errors :-( and
ulockmgr_server: open file descriptors on exit

I can restart the ciopfs and recover but it's not a good solution

so my question is - what methods can I use to make sure my cache is popualted with a filetree that windows will be happy with, and not have duplicated directory names
The easiest and most robust ways to achieve your goal are to:

1. Take the Window machine outside and set fire to it.

-- or --

2. Go through the Linux directory tree and name everything uniquely (e.g. without depending on case) so there will never be a name collision on the Windows machine.

I personally prefer solution (1).

But you need to understand that a Linux machine connected to a Windows machine is not unlike a porcupine lying down with a platypus.
 
Old 10-03-2009, 11:45 AM   #4
lazlow
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Registered: Jan 2006
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You MIGHT look at using NFS instead of Cifs/Samba (yes you can use NFS on windows). The SFU package for windows was released by Microsoft for free and handles NFS.

I am not positive that it will cure your issue but it does seem to work better for me than samba/cifs.
 
Old 10-09-2009, 05:13 AM   #5
nublet
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As an update,
it's because of a cross platform development that we have to do this , and burning the windows machines is not a solution.

No file system seemed to make any difference,
I even mounted the drive under smbmount locally and tried to get it to update though that but the linux client would still populate the directories with mixed case names :-(

what I've done to alleviate the problem - though it just makes it go away and is not a real solution, is you use a windows machine connected to the share to populate the file tree, this does mean I have to run a batch file on that machie which is not as useful as the script I had on the main machine - this also causes more network traffic to the machine that is being the cache, - this has not swappen the link yet but as we get more using the system it may well do , so I'm still after a solution
 
Old 10-09-2009, 07:28 AM   #6
tkedwards
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Location: Munich, Germany
Distribution: Opensuse 11.2
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From your original description it sounds like it's the perforce application that's creating the duplication, unless I've misunderstood something.

Can you not just share the directories directly between the Win and Linux machine using Samba on the Linux side and Windows file sharing? AFAIK Samba has inbuilt defaults to cope with this problem (see the smb.conf man page under 'NAME MANGLING' for details on how to change configure it if it doesn't work straight off).
 
  


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