InDesign unable to access "Read-only" share??

[bjornjacobsen]

Hi there,
would appreciate any advice regarding Apple clients accessing a Read-only share. The users are connecting to a smb share and browse using InDesign, looking at the archived content. this is old data, no one is supposed to write/delete files as it is no longer being backed up, so access needs to be Read-only.

The users are unable to open InDesign files from this volume, it seems like InDesign is unable to create a temporary file or something on the volume and will therefore not open..

When connecting to an AFP shared volume (services for macintosh or ExtremeZ) this does not seem to be an issue.

Today we have to tell the users to copy the file locally, then open. This is not a great solution, is there anything we can do about this?

Does anyone have any ideas about how to enable InDesign to access SMB read-only shares, opening files by double-clicking them on the server?

Thanks
Bjorn

[Satcomer]

How is the SMB share disk formatted? I ask because OS X can not write to NTFS volumes (only read from them ) because NTFS is a Microsoft only format that they will not license to other Manufactures for "security reasons"! Now if you read our HowTo Forums there is a forum called How to make your Mac OS X recognize, read, and write to NTFS volumes that will hack your way to enable a Mac to write to an NTFS volume.

[bjornjacobsen]

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

This is not an issue with a local NTFS volume, sorry if I didn't explain properly.
We have 380 Mac clients that access NTFS volumes, saving production files on Windows servers using SMB and AFP through both SFD and ExtremeZ-IP.

(Mac clients don't have any issues with a file server sharing a volume that to the server itself is NTFS. Issues around connecting to Windows file servers are usually an issue around SMB signing and the way Apple can not dynamically refresh SMB shares the way pc's do)

In this case the file server is a NetApp FAS3020C, a clustered file serving device using SMB as a file sharing protocol to "publish" an archive folder.
The Macintosh clients connects to the server and choose the folder to view, and can see the files. The file system of NetApp is not NTFS, Microsoft's proprietary file system. From memory I think it is WAFL?

In the application InDesign they can however not open an InDesign file by clicking on it while the file is still on the server.
When the archive folder was on a Windows server using SFM the Mac's could open InDesign files straight off the server even on a Read-only drive. So the Mac's can open .indd files from a Read-Only volume connected using AFP, but not SMB/CIFS.

Is there any way of getting InDesign to open files off a Read-Only drive on the network? is there a setting somewhere to place this temp file locally?
(As NetApp do not offer the AFP protocol, SMB will keep being the protocol for sharing files.)

thanks again


Regards
Bjorn Jacobsen

[mudfrog]

Originally Posted by Satcomer

How is the SMB share disk formatted? I ask because OS X can not write to NTFS volumes (only read from them ) because NTFS is a Microsoft only format that they will not license to other Manufactures for "security reasons"! Now if you read our HowTo Forums there is a forum called How to make your Mac OS X recognize, read, and write to NTFS volumes that will hack your way to enable a Mac to write to an NTFS volume.

Not quite sure the above is true.

We have a couple Windows 2003 servers with NTFS permissions set and all the macs can read and write to them with no problems (apart from the odd Excel save issue which is a known problem).

But I'm not sure what can be done to solve the original problem if it needs write access for the temporary file

[Natobasso]

A read only share I assume means you can't add any new files to that server? InDesign always creates a temp file in the same location as the original; and this could be your issue.

It's always better to work on an ID file locally anyway (quicker, fewer linking hassles) but in order for you to have the solution you want, you'll probably want a server you have persmissions to and that isn't read only. Is this available to you?

[bjornjacobsen]

Hi,
this is a shared volume for Archived issues, so the users are to not be able to write files/delete files to this volume since it is not being backed up.

When connecting to a shared drive over AFP the Mac clients (we have 380 of them) don't have issues with opening files on a Read-Only drive. When connecting over SMB/CIFS they are unable to open InDesign files by clicking on them while stored on the server.

Copying the file locally and then opening is a "better" solution for us in IT, as it removes this issue, but the users are not that happy. They want to be able to open the file from the server, as they could with the old Archive servers.

So the issue is that InDesign could open a file of a Read-Only drive over AFP but not over SMB.

Thanks
Bjorn

[bjornjacobsen]

Have replied to the answers to my question twice, on two different days.
None of the replies are yet to be published on this web site?

Is the an error, or am I actually being censored?

Bjorn

[PDQRI]

If they have upgraded to OS X 10.5.1 they could use Quick Look to view a file. They would need the Quick Look plugin for Illustrator, InDesign, Freehand and Encapsulated PostScript called SneakPeek Pro from code-line.com. The preview is very small so they wouldn't be able to view any text.