Mac files stored on Linux

[Ian Spray]

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Janek <clug at dziewulski.com> wrote:
> I have a query:
>
> How do Mac files work in terms of being stored on Linux? By that I am
> talking about Mac files having 2 forks (data fork and resource fork).
> Storing files on Linux used to (If my memory serves me right)  
> truncate Mac
> files to being purely data forks which would for applications make  
> them
> unusable. If they are stored perfectly happily on Linux, what is the  
> best
> method to do the transfer? NFS, Samba, FTP, AFP?
>
> Hope someone has an idea - I have been reading conflicting  
> information on
> the net :(
>
It depends :)

If you're running a recent-ish OS X (ie: 10.5 or 10.6 - and possibly a  
fully patched 10.4) then don't worry about it.  Apple gave Mac OS much  
more understanding of any non-HFS+ filesystem (about the same time as  
Time capsule came out, if you're looking for the link) and so the Mac  
will create a silently .DS_Store directory on the non-HFS+ drive and  
throw any resource fork data in there.  Just try looking at any camera  
flash card in Linux (or via the Mac command line) after a Finder  
window has been on it to see the stuff it leaves behind.

I use CIFS from an Apple to OpenSolaris serving a ZFS volumes and get  
50MB/s over Gigabit Ethernet and have no problems at all with broken  
files.

If you're using OS 9, then install Netatalk on Linux, and that will  
let the server and handle the forks by creating AppleDouble entries on  
the Linux filesystem.

HTH,
-- 
Ian Spray
GPG Fingerprint: D170 35A3 C858 6E85 9B5B  1557 4CD5 6F6F E176 2D0A