macOS related requests

[djslmft]

Hi guys,

just reinstalled my nas with opensuse, and you deprecated AFP from the newer builds, so I have to use SMB for sharing my stuff made some research and found this site: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configure_Samba_to_Work_Better_with_Mac_OS_X could you please implement most of these things in the default configuration?

and another small thing: the avahi daemon announces default icon for the NAS, could it be Xserve?

thanks in advance

[FroggyFlox]

Hi @djslmft ,

Thanks a lot for your feedback and for your suggestions. The deprecation of AFP in favor of SAMBA was unfortunately somehow forced upon us as described in the forum announcement linked below: https://forum.rockstor.com/t/3-9-2-stable-channel-changelog/5741/22

When I worked on implementing SAMBA for macOS sharing, I tried to follow most of the official recommendations and the one you linked was among them if I remember correctly. My main focus at the time was to allow for TimeMachine to work via Samba so I may have not implemented some that weren't as directly related to non-Timemachine shares. Thanks a lot, then, for your feedback! I'll have a better look at these options and see what we would need to explicitly set in smb.conf, as if I recall some of them are already Samba defaults. In the meantime, and because I cannot test any of this things easily due to the lack of access to a macOS machine, would you be able to describe any limitation from which you are currently suffering when accessing a Samba share from your macOS client? I believe the default config should at least work, but there definitely must be some optimizations to make (as described in the link you provided).

just reinstalled my nas with opensuse

Happy you could make the move! By curiosity, did you use the testing rpm in an openSUSE Leap 15.2 install, or were you able to create your own installer as described below? Don't hesitate to report your experience or any finding/improvement you may have in the forum, it would be most certainly very helpful to all users. https://forum.rockstor.com/t/rockstor-4-installer-recipe-call-for-beta-testers/7237

and another small thing: the avahi daemon announces default icon for the NAS, could it be Xserve?

Yeah, I wondered that one myself when implementing it... I went with the Samba default, but that surely is something that can be changed if it's more intuitive for most people.

Thanks again for your feedback, we depend on such reports to improve these things so that's extremely helpful. Once I get time to have a look at it, would you be willing to help test those settings? Have you used any of those in your own smb.conf, for instance? Rockstor does provide an interface to easily customize those settings so that won't require messing with the files directly.

Thanks again,

[djslmft]

Hi

first of all thanks for your quick reply

would you be able to describe any limitation from which you are currently suffering when accessing a Samba share from your macOS client?

Some little things that maybe can be corrected such as custom folder icons i don't know exactly, but i have much slower throughput with this new system, about double time the same file, laggy transfer

just reinstalled my nas with opensuse were you able to create your own installer as described below?

yes, I made with the kiwi, and there's another thing, i cannot select the drive i'm installing on, don't see which drive i erase, i had to disconnect my array to make the install

Once I get time to have a look at it, would you be willing to help test those settings? Have you used any of those in your own smb.conf, for instance?

I'll try the settings when I'm done with the project I'm currently on

Rockstor does provide an interface to easily customize those settings so that won't require messing with the files directly.

What do you mean exactly?

Thanks again

[djslmft]

i don't know exactly, but i have much slower throughput with this new system, about double time the same file, laggy transfer

looks like i got my bandwidth back :)

[FroggyFlox]

Hi @djslmft ,

May I suggest we take this conversation to our forum? We're indeed starting to provide some information that would be useful for a wide range of users, and our forum is best suited for this. https://forum.rockstor.com

This way we can keep this issue focused on implementing the optimizations you listed and keeping track of it.

I will of course answer your existing questions here for the moment, but don't hesitate to create a thread on our forum if you have any additional question.

First, I'm glad you got your bandwidth back... Did you do anything in particular (like implementing the optimizations you provided) or did it simply improve "by itself"? If you tried the optimizations you listed, which ones exactly?

The interface to customize smb.conf I referred to is comprised of two elements:

1. customization in the [global] section of smb.conf: go to Services > click on the little wrench icon next to the Samba service, and you will have a text area where you can input all settings you want/need.
2. customization for each share section of smb.conf: When creating a Samba share, fill in all options you want/need in the "Custom configuration" text area.

Regarding your install using the installer you created using Kiwi, this is most likely related to a safety feature in the kiwi recipe as only devices less than 500 GB are listed. You will find an explanation and notes in @phillxnet 's announcement:

N.B. by default the resulting installer will only show target drives that are < 500 GB as a safety measure as it is assumed the system drive in most cases will be less than this size and existing data drives will likely be greater than this. A grub boot time intervention can remove this safety feature if required. We should probably add some text on how to ‘undo’ this safety feature. Do feel free to document that by way of a pull request in that repo on the README.md file if you fancy. https://forum.rockstor.com/t/rockstor-4-installer-recipe-call-for-beta-testers/7237

I thus suspect that some of your "data" drives (not used for the os install) are below 500 GB, is that correct? It is usually a good practice to disconnect all drives except the one that will host the OS prior to the system installation, so this Kiwi safety setting is a nice additional measure to help ensure data drives are not selected by mistake. Of course, there is no perfect threshold and we just need to find the one that will satisfy most use cases.

Hope this helps,