Sharing a Firewire Drive Between Mac and Linux? 56
jhealy1024 asks: "I was getting short of disk space on my iBook, so I got an external 100GB FireWire drive to expand my storage space. It works like a charm, and so my storage problems are relieved -- for now. Then I realized that my Linux server has several IEEE 1394 ports on it -- maybe I could use the drive to back up files from my Linux server as well! Unfortunately, after an afternoon of frustration, I haven't been able to do it. The problem seems to be that there are no (fully working) formats that both the Linux box and the Mac can use. HFS+ and UFS are supported by both machines, but write support on the Linux side is reportedly still in beta for both. I don't feel that I can trust it yet for backing up files. I've tried UDF, but the versions aren't compatible (Linux likes 2+, and OSX only goes to 1.5). Not to mention, Mac OS doesn't seem to like a whole block device formatted as UDF (mmm... kernel panic). The closest I got was by using FAT32 as the partition type, which does work on both machines. Unfortunately, the max file size is 4GB, which won't cut it if I use the Mac for DVD mastering or DV editing (20 minutes of video == 4+GB). I know I could just partition the drive, but I'd really just like to share files on one device (especially things like MP3s). Has anyone found a good way to share physical devices between Mac OS X and Linux?"
Re:Low and dirty (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Low and dirty (Score:1)
You may need a "transfer" partition... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How about using a real OS? (Score:2)
I'm dumping IRIX, Unicos, QNX and VMS!
Could UDF be the solution? (Score:2)
Re:Could UDF be the solution? (Score:2, Informative)
I've tried UDF, but the versions aren't compatible (Linux likes 2+, and OSX only goes to 1.5). Not to mention, Mac OS doesn't seem to like a whole block device formatted as UDF (mmm... kernel panic).
Re:Could UDF be the solution? (Score:1)
Re:Could UDF be the solution? (Score:1)
Re:um (Score:1)
A roundabout option (Score:1)
If you're running Jaguar, you may be able to get the iBook to recognize the linux machine as a router or vice versa (or fake windows filesharing using Samba and Rendevous). I've never had to work with filesizes over 4g, so FAT32 works fine for me, but you might consider transferring files over a standard ethernet connection instead, and then backing those files up from the linux machine onto the firewire drive.
It's not a perfect solution, but it could work.
Re:A roundabout option (Score:1)
The story poster was stating that this is for backup purposes. Most archiving solutions are slower than what is being used in production.
Besides, most external firewire drives can't even come close to using the full bandwidth of firewire anyway. You wouldn't really be giving up that much anyway in real-world performance. You should be able to backup this 100Gb hard drive over ethernet in a couple hours.
hmm, windows + mac? (Score:2)
any help/suggestions?
Re:hmm, windows + mac? (Score:1)
OS-X is basically Free-BSD, isn't it?
Re:hmm, windows + mac? (Score:1)
samba for OS X 10.2 is still in beta, and i think it is mostly geared twords being seen on a network, not recognizing windows (essentially) internal drives.
i *have* a windows box, but it's not usually turned on/accessed. the idea would be to have a windows compatible (aka windows formatted) firewire/usb 2.0 drive i can take to my friend's house and plug in and boot off of, or swap files with. go to lan parties and have my custom quake3 config file all set up, ect. and then also to back up the files that are on my mac format firewire drive (about 30 gigs worth)
Re:hmm, windows + mac? (Score:2)
Secondly, FreeBSD doesn't use the Mach kernel, it uses the BSD kernel, although newer versions of Mach are binary compatible with FreeBSD according to the Mach4 homepage.
Lastly, Samba has always been for accessing windows drives over a network. It's a free version of SMB, a protocol developed by MS and IBM for transfering data across a network. It has never been for use with internal drives, and probably never will be, because it is a network protocol.
Re:hmm, windows + mac? (Score:1)
Go to Sharing Prefrences and enable "Windows File Sharing."
Jaguar is a wonderful thing.
Jaguar's Samba Works, Except for WINS (Score:1)
Re:hmm, windows + mac? (Score:2)
Re:hmm, windows + mac? (Score:2)
sharing between Linux and Mac OS X (Score:1)
Mac OS X should be able to see all partition types that FeeBSD can see. Linux too.
But if you are just looking at backing up some files from a linux box bzip them and scp them to the Mac running OS X... rsync is reported to work in the other direction too.
Re:sharing between Linux and Mac OS X (Score:1)
Re:sharing between Linux and Mac OS X (Score:1)
Re:sharing between Linux and Mac OS X (Score:2)
I was thinking that, too. I have no experience OS X, of course, but everybody keeps talking about how it's a *nix. It would be pretty lame if something as dumb as support for open file system formats was the thing that killed that notion.
Re:sharing between Linux and Mac OS X (Score:2)
Not entirely true; Mac OS X has a FreeBSD compatibility layer, but is not based on the FreeBSD kernel. It uses a Mach Microkernel, similar to GNU HURD. Although they can technically port any filesystem drivers from FreeBSD over to OS X, this is not true for Linux filesystem drivers- Since Linux is covered under the GPL, filesystem drivers in Linux are also covered. Hence, without GPL'ing OS X (at least their entire Kernel), they can't pull anything from Linux.
So, you won't likely see anything like reiserfs in OS X anytime soon.
Does anyone know if it's easy / possible to create a third-party filesystem driver for OS X? I don't like Apple stuff, so I don't know much about that part of OS X internals. Do they have a Loadable Kernel Module interface? Anything like that?
Re:sharing between Linux and Mac OS X (Score:2)
First, microkernels are all about modules, in fact, modularized drivers are the whole point of having a microkernel. So, yes, in theory a third party could write drivers. However, as you have already pointed out, at least indirectly, the OS X kernel is a closed Mach variant, so who really knows if it's possible to create driver modules for third party file systems? It seems like it would be a stupid thing to prevent, but I'm sure an MBA could make a reasonable-sounding case for it.
Also, while we're on the subject, It's the Mach kernel which is BSD compatible, since at least Mach3. That isn't something special that Apple added.
Now as for the GPL, they could use the GPL code only in the module, which would mean that only the module would be subject to the GPL, or they could write their own code which interfaces with the APIs (or whatever they are called) for reiser/ext3/whatever and none of their code would be subject to the GPL.
Don't buy the FUD. The GPL is not nearly as viral as Microsoft would have you believe.
Re:sharing between Linux and Mac OS X (Score:2)
My question about whether or not third-party modules could be created was meant as "has apple made the interface for this an open specification?".. That is, I know how microkernels work, but I don't know how feasible it is for mac os X. Do they include the right header files and provide an API for third-party (especially open-source-- They can very possibly put some sticky licensing into a developer license for the API) modules?
As for the "viral" nature of the GPL, It's so called because a large number of open-source licenses allow their code to be included into GPL'd code, but the GPL does not allow that same liberty.
Simple solution...not the best though (Score:2, Informative)
Since you didn't mention DVD mastering on the Linux box I'll assume you don't do that. HFS+ read support is support under linux (write support has a warning of being dangerous the last time I compiled a kernel). If required you could still back up the large files from the DVD mastering partition to the Linux machine - you just couldn't safely write them back (you could use something like sftp, or rsync to copy them over an network connection if required later on).
More things I've tried (from the poster) (Score:4, Informative)
While I appreciate the two-partition suggestions, they're not quite what I'm looking for, as I don't want to split the disk in half for the two different machines. The "transfer partition" (a small partition in HFS that both machines can read) idea is a good one, but when I get to that point it's easier to just network the machines together and copy the files rather than waste the disk space.
On that front, I've tried NFS and Samba between the linux box and the ibook, without much success. I suspect it may have to do with large file support on the linux side.
The NFS mount works okay, but then randomly craps out (I get read errors) on large files. I've tried tuning the NFS connection params (different version numbers, TCP/UDP, buffer sizes) without much luck.
With Samba, I'm smacking into the large file size limit on linux. I wanted to try an SMB mount from the linux to the ibook. The ibook seems to be exporting the full sizes on the files, but the linux size can't see files over 2GB. I've recompiled Samba on both, but that didn't help. Therefore, I think I need to patch my kernel for large file support in SMBfs and try again.
I just bought Jaguar, so I'm hoping that I might get a little help in the new release. Also, I haven't tried AFS yet... =)
Re:More things I've tried (from the poster) (Score:2)
Well, there's one thing you might try: instead of sharing the drive between two machines over firewire, share the *machines* over firewire.
Since you seem to be working with video, its no surprise that ethernet isn't working (over smb). And the file format issues are going to always be suspect (in my mind) even if both machines officially supported the same format.
So, what I would try to do is network the machines using firewire and Firewire IP, and then share the drive using whatever protocol works from the Mac to the Linux box.
The big wrinkle of course is whether both support firewire IP. I'm not even sure the Mac does, and IU suspect Linux doesn't yet, but I could be wrong. It seems to be a pretty new standard.
Re:More things I've tried (from the poster) (Score:2)
Connectivity is not the issue, it's compatability. Unlike USB, firewire allows more than one cpu on a chain, so both machines can see the drive on the same firewire chain.
Re:More things I've tried (from the poster) (Score:1)
Re:More things I've tried (from the poster) (Score:1)
2 things (Score:1)
Gigabit ethernet
NFS
This would seem to be the easiest setup. and both could have rw access. then just add a simple line to the fstab and the drive would always be there.
HFS (Score:2)
Does MacOSX still support it, or did Apple drop support of it?
The last time I used HFS with Linux, it was fine. Back then, there was NO HFS+ support in Linux, but apparently there is some now.
Another solution might be fat32... does MacOS have any support for it? I used to be able to use fat32 formatted zip drives way back when in classic MacOS. Unfortuantly, I don't have a mac anymore to test any of these things with.
Re:HFS (Score:2)
Speaking of, the poster made an error. FAT32 does not have a 4GB partition limit - FAT16 does.
Re:HFS (Score:1)
It's been a while since I've tried this, though, so salt to taste.
-Ster
Re:HFS (Score:3, Informative)
The poster was talking about the file size limit, not the partition size. I double checked MSDN [microsoft.com] to be sure, and both FAT16 and FAT32 limit files to 2^32 - 1 bytes. It's a shame OS X can't use NTFS. The file size limit there is 2^64 - 1 bytes. That much pr0n and MP3 can kill a man. :-)
Re:HFS and FAT32 (Score:1)
XP forces NTFS for partitions larger than 32GB.
Mike
No filesystem at all? (Score:2, Interesting)
One approach: Use tar to create an archive in the raw partition. This is what tar was originally invented to do, though with tape device files, rather than disk device files. I suppose that's good for archiving stuff, but not much else. Do you mind copying your video files to internal disk before working on them?
Another approach: create a partition the same size as the file you want to put on the disk... Well, that could get weird.
Too strange, too complicated? Probably. Just brainstorming here.
Re:No filesystem at all? (Score:1)
My reward? 2 "Redundant" down mods, and irrefutable proof that the moderation system is truly broken.
Grow Up Cliff! (Score:2)
Rob, you listening? What purpose do IMPs serve? Aside from destroying the credibility of the moderation system, that is.
I do want to disagree with Captain Pendantic (hey, I'm sometimes known as Lord of the Nitpicks, I guess we haven't met) on one point. The moderation system is not a system of rewards and punishments. It's a filtering system. Of course, in this case, it failed as a filtering system, by removing extremely relevent comments from the discussion.
Moderation is (or rather, always was) broken (Score:1)
You tell that to the people who have a +1 posting bonus, or to those who can only post twice a day.
Also, moderation should only ever be done at -1, oldest first. With no influence from the friends and foes crap, and if at all possible, anonymously. If a comment is going to be moderated up or down, let it be done so, soley on its content, not the author.
Those silly rules (Score:2)
Re:Those silly rules (Score:1)
And I wasn't making a point with the other thing, just ranting. The fact that you knew where else that is written means that it wasn't aimed at you!
Related problem Jag + XP--no solution yet (Score:1)
I have resigned myself to partitioning the drive, with one formatted NTFS for the XP box and one formatted as FAT32 for the Macs. I tried HFS+, but for some reason my Mac can't successfully format a partition created from the PC, and the PC can't even see partitions created on my Mac. The only thing that seems to work is to partition it on the PC and format as FAT32.
Then I run into the 4GB filesize limitation. I might try to create a large virtual drive by creating a segmented disk image file. Wow, that would be ugly. But if it works . . .