Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 14:45:47 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@iafrica.com> To: rpt@miles.sso.wdl.lmco.comm (Richard Toren) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: SAMBA and DOS file systems Message-ID: <199608071245.OAA01558@eac.iafrica.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960806185535.8028A-100000@miles> from "Richard Toren" at Aug 6, 96 07:04:09 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Richard Toren wrote:
> SAMBA seems to have really picked up as a topic these last couple of weeks.
>
> My question concerns the file systems that SAMBA uses to support the
> remote requests. This machine is used for both FBSD and WFWG 3.11. I am
> planning to use SAMBA as a file server for the WFWG files stored in the
> DOS partitions, and used on another WFWG machine.
>
> I have been following (over the last year) the saga of the fitness of
> using the DOS FS. Some people seem to have a disaster, and others say it
> works just fine. In my case I have 3 DOS partitions (1 primary and 2
> extended) of 250 Mb each.
>
> Is SAMBA safe with DOS partitions? Should the FreeBSD partitions be the
> only ones used?
>
> Any experiences are guidelines would be appreciated....
I can't comment about SAMBA, but the following is reasonably
definitive regarding the state of the msdosfs itself:
* Use of the msdosfs to access certain DOS partitions may cause
corruption to a non-DOS partition not necessarily on the same
drive.
* The msdosfs code permits numerous race conditions and deadlocks,
and also has major bugs at a more fundamental level (messing
up when moving/renaming directories, as one example).
Corruption to non-DOS partitions typically occurs in the case of
64-head IDE drives accessing large DOS partitions with 64-sector
cluster sizes. From data I have gathered, use of FIPS is _not_ a
necessary or sufficient condition for this. Apparently /dev/wd
is.
A while ago, I spent a couple of days investigating the corruption
problem. However I have only four different non-SCSI drives here,
and was unable to corrupt any of them. As I was lacking an
EIDE/translating controller at the time, I didn't pursue this.
The non-DOS partition corruption problem is a system configuration
issue and is avoidable, with planning. Avoid it, and the msdosfs
is perfectly usable for simple data transfers (one user copying
individual files to and from a DOS filesystem). If you value your
data, I'd say the msdosfs is pretty much _unusable_ for anything
more complex.
--
Robert Nordier
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199608071245.OAA01558>