[CentOS] Making a NAS/HFS server

Wed Jan 9 20:49:48 UTC 2008
Steve Campbell <campbell at cnpapers.com>

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.

Steve Campbell