[CentOS] Making a NAS/HFS server

[Craig White]

On Wed, 2008-01-09 at 16:38 -0500, Steve Campbell wrote:
> 
> Craig White wrote:
> > On Wed, 2008-01-09 at 15:49 -0500, Steve Campbell wrote:
> >   
> >> I ran into a problem that I couldn't resolve straight away, but would 
> >> like to solve for sometime in the future.
> >>
> >> We have a Thecus storage server (similar to a Buffalo TeraByte, if that 
> >> helps?) that has a Mac filesystem on it. The mother board was failing, 
> >> but the drives are still OK. A new box has been added, so the urgency is 
> >> sort of gone. I was going to try and back up the data to a new CentOS 
> >> 5.1 box I had until the new Thecus arrived, but ran into the problem of 
> >> Mac resource forks not being copied when I mounted the Thecus as a CIFS 
> >> system.
> >>
> >> Is there a commonly used procedure to do the above task of copying a Mac 
> >> (HFS, I think) system to a linux box from the linux box?
> >>
> >> This sort of runs into another project we have in the works where we 
> >> want to make the equivalent of a SAN/NAS type storage system. We want to 
> >> have a cluster of Centos boxes running for shared storage, and have the 
> >> ability to add to it seamlessly. But now, I'm wondering if it won't run 
> >> into the same problem with the HFS or other filesystems that may be 
> >> used. I understand NAS storage sort of handles the different filesystem 
> >> protocols by interface, so I wondering if anyone has a pointer to 
> >> something like this also.
> >>
> >> Google keeps pointing me in a circle back to an old HFS+ driver that 
> >> sort of stopped development in 2003. The trail ends very abruptly.
> >>
> >> Sorry to be so windy, but offer thanks in advance for any clues.
> >>     
> > ----
> > If you want to be certain that you preserve the Macintosh resource
> > forks, you might want to add Netatalk (http://netatalk.sourceforge.net),
> > which makes it a real AFPoverTCP file server. Then you use a Macintosh
> > to copy the files over.
> >
> > Otherwise, I would suggest that you use tar to copy the folders over
> > which should preserve all of the contents.
> >
> > Are you sure that those are really HFS (or HFSPlus) filesystems?
> >
> >   
> 
> No, I'm not sure of anything on the Thecus, as I didn't have anything to 
> do with it's setup or population. I was just asked to back it up. Seems 
> like when it comes to doing the important stuff, they always come to the 
> Linux guys.
> 
> I don't understand, though, how it could have been populated with Mac 
> stuff unless it either had a Mac fs or something or the sorts. A Mac 
> wrote the data, but I'm not sure what type of format the system had. I 
> really don't have a clue about this or how to fix up the NAS if we ever 
> get that far.
> 
> Sorry to be so dense that I can't answer your questions on the subject. 
> It's all new to me. Thanks, though.
----
I doubt it had HFS/HFSPlus filesystem but rather used something like
Netatalk for Apple clients. Easy way to find out...sit in front of a Mac
and see if you can connect to it by...

Go (menu) => Connect to Server => afp://ip_address_of_server

and if it offers login, it's a Macintosh file server

Again, I would use a Macintosh to move the files if retaining the
resource forks is important. That's the only way to ensure that they are
moved and work.

Note that if a Mac copies the files to a Samba (CIFS) server, the
resource forks will be discarded. I don't know what will happen if NFS.

Craig