Sharing Database - Windows/XP

Robert Heller heller at deepsoft.com
Sat Apr 24 17:07:02 EDT 2010


At Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:38:37 -0700 John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.fremont.ca.us> wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 24, 2010, at 11:24 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
> 
> > At Sat, 24 Apr 2010 08:46:38 -0700 John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
> > 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Apr 24, 2010, at 8:39 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
> >> 
> >>> At Sat, 24 Apr 2010 07:15:23 -0700 John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> On Apr 24, 2010, at 5:32 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>>>> At Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:25:49 -0400 Phillip Richcreek <pwrichcreek at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> Geert,
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> I had just summarized and re-stated my question before seeing your
> >>>>>> reply; so I did not (could not!) incorporate your reply in my
> >>>>>> restatement. I think it does, however, go to the heart of the issue.
> >>>>>> I'm no Windows expert, but I believe there are locking mechanisms
> >>>>>> available for the ntfs file system that (I believe) Windows/XP uses in
> >>>>>> the limited network environment that I am running.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 'NFS' (as mentioned below) is a *UNIX* network file system (sharing
> >>>>> files across multiple *unix* computers on a network).
> >>>> 
> >>>> NFS is a platform-independent TCP/IP remote mount protocol. It has
> >>>> been implemented on just about every operating system for which TCP/IP
> >>>> has, including Microsoft Windows. True, it's commonly provided with
> >>>> unix-like systems including Linux and the BSD, but I have used it on
> >>>> Microsoft Windows (both DOS-based and NT), VAX VMS, TOPS-20,  VM/CMS,
> >>>> OS/400, and PrimeOS.
> >>> 
> >>> Yes, this is all true.  NFS is *native* to most UNIX and UNIX-variants
> >>> (eg is a basic part of all Linux kernels and the user-mode utilites
> >>> related to NFS are a pretty standard part of any Linux distro and are
> >>> commonly installed by default).
> >>> 
> >>> It is unlikely that a network of only Microsoft Windows machines would
> >>> be using NFS.  NFS is not normally a part of the Microsoft Windows
> >>> installation. 
> >> 
> >> So what?
> >> 
> >> You do realize that Geert said NTFS (which is the native, not shared, file system used by Microsoft's NT kernel), not NFS,
> >> don't you?
> > 
> > Yes, but the original post he was responding to (top-posting no less,
> > which seems to have caused the original message to be lost), was talking
> > about NFS and the point of the .LCK + .LNK files link(2)ed together relates
> > to NFS Locking issues.  The link(2)ed .LCK + .LNK files don't occur
> > under MS-Windows both because the link(2) system service does not exist
> > (in the same sense as under UNIX) and because NFS Locking issues are not
> > an issue under MS-Windows because NFS is rarely used under MS-Windows.
> 
> Well, here's the bit that got chopped off:
> 
> On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 11:43 AM, Geert Janssens
> <janssens-geert at telenet.be> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 21 April 2010, Robert Heller wrote:
> >> At Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:42:32 -0700 (PDT) Phil Longstaff
> > <plongstaff at rogers.com> wrote:
> >>> I don't know if this is related to bug
> >>> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=352491 or not.
> >> 
> >> I just did some experiments on my Linux box.  GnuCash creates a single
> >> file with *two* names (trivial to do under UNIX with a UNIX-flavored
> >> file system -- just a matter of fun with the link(2) system service).
> >> The .LCK and .LNK files refer to the *same* inode.  Does MS-Windows let
> >> you do that?  And does the NETBIOS protocol support such magic?
> >> 
> > For windows this doesn't matter. The .LCK and .LNK functionality is explicitly
> > disabled on Windows systems. That code was added to deal with nfs locking
> > issues. Nfs is (assumed) not (to be) available on Windows, so the extra code
> > is not compiled in that platform.
> > 
> > But it might indeed be relevant when accessing your data file from a linux box
> > over netbios (via samba), when the code is enabled, while NETBIOS doesn't
> > support such tricks.
> > 
> > Geert
> 
> I don't see what you're going on about. You're the one who brought up
> the whole link(2) irrelevance in the first place, and Geert told you
> that it was irrelevant because the code is disabled.

*I* didn't know that (I don't happen to have the GnuCash source code on
my machine and don't have any reason to download it over a slow dial-up
connection at this time).  And was wondering if something fishy was
going in in the MS-Windows world that was causing your problem.  It
seems that the link(2) fun & games relates to NFS and is in fact not
relevant to MS-Windows.  

> 
> Regards,
> John Ralls
> 
>                                           

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller at deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                                               


More information about the gnucash-user mailing list