Samba

Ongoing SMB permissions issue after upgrading to 10.6.3

An ongoing issue that people have had with the latest 10.6.3 update is with changes to the Finder's handling of files when copying to mounted SMB shares. There have been errors stating the files cannot be copied either because the user does not have permissions to access them, or a Finder error -36 which is a basic I/O error.… Read more

SMB networking problems with NAS devices after updating

Since installing 10.6.3, a number of people have complained about limited connectivity when using Windows file sharing (SMB or Samba) over the network. This has resulted in permissions errors being presented when trying to copy files to NAS drives that are mounted via SMB.… Read more

Snow Leopard SMB incompatibility with newer Samba versions on Unix systems?

A few people have noticed a problem in Snow Leopard where depending on the view being used, the Finder may not properly manage files on shared SMB resources. Specifically, when in column view in the Finder, while files and folders can be created and deleted, folders cannot be renamed. In some instances doing this leads to the Finder crashing and relaunching but for the most part folders just will not rename.… Read more

A better site-monitoring tool

Simon (from Dejal Systems) is a reasonably priced, feature-rich site-monitoring tool, especially useful to administrators who need to keep track of multiple sites, servers, and applications. The app's primary interface is a straightforward Monitor window, which displays everything that you're tracking with stats on uptime, time until the next check, and time since the last change and failure--along with graphs, lists, and more details when you drill down. You can drag and drop URLs onto the Monitor window, or import from bookmarks, and Simon's services let you define what you want to test, from SMART status to … Read more

The Microsoft patent emperor with nothing on but a Speedo

You've already seen it on Slashdot. ZDNet also has a great write-up. But for the real meat go to the source, Tom Kemp's blog.

About what? Well, just the contention that

...[o]f the 125 protocols posted on MSDN for Windows Server, 99 of the 125 protocols have no US patents associated with them, meaning 80 percent of the Windows server protocols do not have US patents associated with them.

Jason Perlow rightly asks if Samba got anything real from its patent deal with Microsoft. But perhaps we should stretch this further:

If, in fact, 80 percent of … Read more

Open-source fans mixed on Microsoft move

Open-source fans can be a skeptical bunch, but I've seen their collective opinions shift--for example in the gradually diminishing loathing for Sun Microsystems as that company stopped deriding Linux and started moving its portfolio to open-source software.

So it's not a surprise that various representatives had a mixed reaction to Microsoft's move Thursday to share details of its technology with open-source programmers.

The move could make it easier for many projects to work well with Microsoft products and potentially replace them--for example the Thunderbird e-mail software could communicate better with Microsoft Exchange servers and also displace Microsoft … Read more

European Commission forces Microsoft to open its protocols to Samba

The European Commission finally pushed Microsoft into opening up its protocols to enable Samba to interoperate with Windows. One can only assume that the backroom fighting over this one was not pretty:

The Commission ruled in 2004 that Microsoft must provide interconnection information letting rival server companies operate as smoothly with Microsoft Windows desktop machines as Microsoft's own server software.

The deal signed in the United States by the non-profit Protocol Freedom Information Foundation was focused on helping Samba, a non-profit maker of free, open source server software.

"The agreement allows us to keep Samba up to date … Read more

Open-source Samba gets inside look at Microsoft specs

A complicated third-party arrangement means that the open-source Samba project will be able to make use of proprietary documents describing Microsoft file-sharing software.

Samba, governed by the General Public License (GPL), lets Unix or Linux servers behave like Windows machines used to share files over a network and control networked printers. But the effort has been difficult: Microsoft doesn't go out of its way to share the details of the protocols; patent infringement concerns also have appeared more than once.

On Thursday, though, the Samba team announced a deal that gets around the previous barriers. The increasingly influential Software Freedom Law Center, … Read more

Holes in Leopard's firewall

Although Apple is selling its new Mac OS X Leopard operating system on its improved security, researchers at Heise Security have already found fault with its firewall. Unlike with Windows Vista, the Apple firewall is not enabled by default and must be enabled by the end user. Even if you had the firewall enabled in a previous version of the Mac OS X, after an upgrade to Leopard the firewall will again be set to "Allow all incoming connections." It will be disabled.

According to Jürgen Schmidt, editor in chief at Heise Security, if you enable … Read more