Is it possible to add "strict allocate = yes"?

[clowg]

I have been reccomended by Microsoft to add "strict allocate = yes" to the smb.conf on my linux NAS file share to try to solve a problem with Windows Server 2008 R2 creating/writing sparse VHD files as part of the built-in backup utility job.

Is this possible on a ReadyNAS NV+?

G.

[mdgm-ntgr]

You can login using SSH and edit /etc/samba/smb.conf using vi.

This file may get overwritten when you update the firmware or do a firmware re-install, so bear this in mind.

Perhaps NetGear'll add this line in a future firmware release? Any comment from the Jedi?

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

[WhoCares_]

A better place to add that statement would be one of the /etc/frontview/samba/smb.conf.* files. As these are special config files for clients using different Windows versions it should even be possible to add the option just to those config files where it is actually needed. And since these files aren't touched by Frontview in any way, changes made there will survive reboots and changes in the global config through Frontview.

-Stefan

[mdgm-ntgr]

That's great. Much better to do it that way.

MDGM-NAS:~# ls /etc/frontview/samba
addons			   Shares.conf-sav  smb.conf.UNKNOWN  smb.conf.Win2K3
Shares.conf		   smb.conf.CIFSFS  smb.conf.Vista    smb.conf.Win95
Shares.conf.admin	   smb.conf.OS2     smb.conf.WfWg     smb.conf.WinNT
Shares.conf.administrator  smb.conf.Samba   smb.conf.Win2K    smb.conf.WinXP

Btw, WhoCares which one is the one to use for 2008 R2?

[clowg]

Ah - thanks guys.

Does anyone have advice on what smb.conf file I should edit for Windows Server 2008 R2?

Is there somewhere particular I have to add this new line?

[WhoCares_]

clowg wrote:
Does anyone have advice on what smb.conf file I should edit for Windows Server 2008 R2? Is there somewhere particular I have to add this new line?

I don't know how WS2k8R2 identifies itself as to Samba, so you may need to enter the line in every file or even create a new file for it. As for the format: it's just a single line with the statement in it.

-Stefan

[clowg]

Will I have to restart the ReadyNAS to get these edited files to be re-read?

[mdgm-ntgr]

I don't know. Probably either that or restarting the samba service.

[WhoCares_]

REstarting is a sure way to have those files re-read by the Samba service. However, since those files are re-read on every new connection it should be enough to close all connections to the NAS and re-establish the links.

-Stefan

[clowg]

I restarted the NAS last nite. I'll chk later today if the nightly backup form my Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V host worked.

[clowg]

mmm.... still not getting a sucsessful backup from the R2 server. Same issue - sparse file being created. So I must not have the right conf file for W2k8R2 yet. Can anyone shed some light on what the correct samba.conf file is for W2k8R2?

[warzone]

I have the same issue.

Post : http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39799&p=221342#p221342

Temporarily I am doing a full backup because it works. Setting -allcritical and -include:D:\ (just the drive without dir paths). had to move my other junk that I didnt want backed up to another drive. But I would like to know if there is a resolution for this too as backing up folders and using exclusions would be useful.

[clowg]

warzone wrote:
I have the same issue. Post : viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39799&p=221342#p221342 Temporarily I am doing a full backup because it works. Setting -allcritical and -include:D:\ (just the drive without dir paths). had to move my other junk that I didnt want backed up to another drive. But I would like to know if there is a resolution for this too as backing up folders and using exclusions would be useful.

Thats interesting - I haven't seen any suggestion that the config of which files are being backed up effects the sparse file "thing". I'll change the config of my backup and see what happens. However, even if it does work, it won't be a fix for me as I can't permantely move the data around to suit that 'bug'.

[Lee_Thompson]

I have the same issue. However, I found that setting the strict allocate option in the conf does not always fix the issue! I actually gave up on Windows Server Backup for backing up Active Directory and I'm using a different program to do it. (Which, sadly, was not free 😞 ).

[spam3645]

I tried this but no luck getting this to work. I both added the "strict allocate = yes" string to the /etc/frontview/samba/smb.conf.* and the /etc/samba/smb.conf [global] files without any effect. I still get the "the version does not support this version of the file format" error whenever I try to back up my windows home server 2011 (WHS 2011) to my ReadyNAS NV. Was anyone able to get this to work? Can anyone post detailed instructions on how to get this to work or how to troubleshoot this?

Thanks,

H

[Lee_Thompson]

spam3645 wrote:

I tried this but no luck getting this to work. I both added the "strict allocate = yes" string to the /etc/frontview/samba/smb.conf.* and the /etc/samba/smb.conf [global] files without any effect. I still get the "the version does not support this version of the file format" error whenever I try to back up my windows home server 2011 (WHS 2011) to my ReadyNAS NV. Was anyone able to get this to work? Can anyone post detailed instructions on how to get this to work or how to troubleshoot this? Thanks, H

Did you restart the Samba daemon on the ReadyNAS after the change? (from FrontView just disable and re-enable CIFS/SMB Windows File Sharing support.)