[CentOS] CentOS 4.2 - Samba 3.0.10-1.4E.2 - Long Filenames Issue

[Craig White]

On Thu, 2006-02-09 at 16:10 +0000, Tom Brown wrote:
> > Could you provide more information? How long are the filenames? Have
> > you tested to see how long is too long? is this using cifs or smb for
> > transfers etc?
> 
> thanks i have more information now - Its using smb i think as they are 
> 'browsing' to the share. The actual errors reads like this
> 
> 'You cannot copy the item "Ania 2/11/01" because the name is too long or 
> includes characters that the disk cannot display'
> 
> I guess the / is to blame?
> 
----
One would think so...

a lot of symbols in filenames cause hell...

/\?*&%$#@! will cause all sorts of headaches and of course Macintosh
users are used to typing anything including 'option' chars and 'control'
chars in filenames.

Tell you users that the following is acceptable in filenames

Letters        A-Z and a-z
Numbers        0-0
Dashes         -
Underscores    _
Periods        .
Commas         ,

Anything else, you can't be certain is usable by users on other OS's,
will properly be backed up, can be moved/renamed by various utilities or
simply not function.

Typically I would install netatalk package for Macintosh users (I think
current is 2.03) and that requires compiling appletalk module separately
or using kernel from CentOS Plus repository for AppleTalk but if the Mac
users are all Panther or newer, you might be able to forget AppleTalk
completely and just provide the AFP over TCP which is what Netatalk will
get you.

Craig