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

You could veto "Thumbs.db".

I actually like the Idea of blocking the file name from being created in the system all together, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing that. you have any suggestions or maybe some documentation I can follow up on??

Thanks
TeddyB

I think that is what a veto file definition will do. It is often used by universities to prevent mp3 files from being saved on their servers.

Look at the manpage for "smb.conf" and search for the word veto.

Also, look into windows policies. There may be something about preventing indexing of networked shares.

http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Impl...ies_with_Samba