Windows networking has a share violation setup that prevents one machine on the network from modifying a file already open on another machine. I have already verified that this does not work with Samba when the machines in question are running Linux as the main OS.

Is this a Samba limitation? Is there some way of preventing two machines on the same network from opening the same file at the same time?

If this cannot be done in Samba, what about NFS?

I assume that I can run NFS and Samba at the same time, yes? For instance: if I set everything to NFS, but leave Windows networking set up, then a Windows box should be able to log into the network and use the Samba server to access the files on the machines, even though those machines normally communicate with each other using NFS, right?

Thanks.

Frank.

here is the samba file locking document:
http://de.samba.org/samba/docs/man/S...n/locking.html

Finlay:

Thank you for the link. I also got a link to:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba...k/ch05_05.html

from another source. I'll have a look at both and see if I can decipher how to set these up.

I was unaware of the *nix way of doing things, which I why I used the "windowese" terminology in my original post.

Now, with regard to NFS, if I run that on all my machines, do I automatically get the *nix file locking, and can therefore skip the Samba setup altogether? I am assuming that I can run both NFS and Samba on the same network, setting up the machines themselves to use one or the other?

I'm sure I could switch to NFS full-time, as all my machines run Linux-only now anyway. However, for the occasional visiting machine (my brother's laptop), I need to be able to leave the network 'windows friendly' as well.

Thanks.

Frank.