CIFS troubles

[robr]

I'm really at a loss here, I spent this weekend playing with Alfresco and I can't even get the simplest of things to work… namely CIFS.  I installed this on a Windows machine.  I created a browse space via the web client, now I want that browse space to appear as a CIFS share… I've read lots of docs, I've searched this forum, I've watched webinars, I've poked around with the two file-server.xxxx files.  It looks like it should be enabled by default….  I'm just not getting what I need to do to turn it on and be able to share that browse space out.

It's like I'm getting TOO MUCH info, some of it depricated, and it's all confusing me.  Being a windows guy, all these config files are pretty overwhelming, but I've played with JBoss applications before and do have some experience with them, so it's not rocket science.  Is there a nice simple UP TO DATE doc that basically says 'DO THIS' to turn it on without trying to document every option available?  Thanks!

[ccsfdave]

I have an Alfresco 3.2 Community installed on a Windows 2003 box.

I also cannot connect via CIFS.  I can get the login box response but I cannot authenticate through.  Before you ask, I have confirmed the username and password in Explorer/Share & the name of the box is winalfresco.

I have tried:

Username: alfresco\admin
Password: ****

Username: alfrescoa\admin
Password: ****

Username: winalfresco\admin
Password: ****

Username: winalfrescoa\admin
Password: ****

Has anyone been able to map a drive to alfresco 3.2 on a Windows Server ( I have heard many have been able to on XP) but I don't have that option.

Thanks,

–
Dave Geller

Senior Business Analyst
R&D Division of the Dept. of Technology
City & County of San Francisco
o: 415.581.3985

[robr]

Dave, we started out getting help from Alfresco Engineer dward (again thanks for trying), but haven't heard much since the basic steps he suggested weren't working.  I was hoping he was looking further into it, but there's been no indication of that.  My Alfresco sales guy asked how things were going and I had to tell him I'd given up and pointed him to this thread as the reason why .

I never could get CIFS working on XP either.  Linux was the closest I came, but that's really not a solution for the environment here and it still has issues that needs work.  I can't afford to put any more time into it, so maybe I'll try again next year and see if these Windows issues have been ironed out by then.

[ccsfdave]

robr-

I have 3.1 on Linux but never could get Open Office to fully work.  It took a bit of configuring and don't want to go down that road again.  I explained to Joe Van De Graaf while at the San Francisco meet-up that what Alfresco really needs to do to gain a foothold in the City and County of San Francisco was to make an installer that incorporated all the features and made everything just plain work.  I suggested they could even go the path of a virtual appliance for VMWare, Parallels, App-Logic, EC2, we have access to all of them.

I have been trying to get a foothold with Alfresco in with the Controller's office but the lack of functionality is an impediment.  I also have internal battles to deal with so if Alfresco could do their part, I could concentrate on the elements out of their control…namely internal politics.

Nevertheless, I hold out hope for Alfresco and want to continue to use and champion them in the city's government.  I just don't understand why they don't recognize the opportunity cost of letting things like this linger.

My suggestion to you is to move on if you must, but keep an eye on the company, I think they are on the verge of doing really good things.

Alfresco Community:  Does anyone have a fix?

[robr]

Dave, pretty much the same situation here at Trump.  Lots of potential here, but it needs to 'just work' when you install it.  I don't care that it relies on open office, java, imagemagick or any of the other 3rd party open source tools that are included, as long as it all installs and just works, that way I can concentrate on getting people to appreciate what it can do for us and get them to start using it (and learn best practices myself).  I had already told my boss what a great product it appeared to be and he checked out the site and read lots of papers and was pretty psyched.  He's going to be pretty disappointed when I tell him it's not going to work for us, not because it doesn't do what we want, but because I, his most senior tech guy, couldn't get it to install and function properly.  I wish I hadn't shown it to him in the first place as I kind of end up with mud on my face.  I hate failure which is why I've put far more time into this than he wanted me to, including my own nights and this past weekend, but my wife and kids are ready to kill me.

[activesrc]

i've been having the same problems as some of you. (either server not found or just a greyed out USERNAME to login with)

the configuration I am configuring right now is a Suse 11.1 Server with Alfresco 3.2 (Only alfresco explorer without share), Clients are WinXP-boxes.

what i did and worked for me was:
from windows command line:

1. nbtstat -a ALFRESCO_SERVER_IP
2. net use X: \\SERVER_NAMEa\Alfresco\SPACE_NAME /user:USERNAME //persistent:yes

(substitute where necessary with your NAMES and IP-adresses)

3. the other thing i did (but not so shure it helped me that much out, was adding an entry in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts for the SERVERNAME and SERVERNAMEa that points to the ip adress of the server)

then CIFS worked like a charm

[dward]

I am looking further into this with the rest of the team and will post back when I am able to.

[robr]

I am looking further into this with the rest of the team and will post back when I am able to.

Thank you very much for the update, I hope you guys figure it out and if there is anything I can do to help (including remote desktop access) please let me know.

[robr]

I am not sure how, or why, but CIFS is now working on my XP machine.  While trying to better document the issues I was having, I started having connectivity issues, being told there was a duplicate netbios name (servernameA) on the network (not true, even with the linux server, that had a different name), so I shut down tomcat and mysql, restarted them, and can now connect via Windows Explorer with admin/admin.  Hopefully it stays that way!

[ofrxnz]

FYI from my experience alfresco 3.2 CIFS on windows  2k3r2 has issues but worked amazingly on Centos 5.3 (though high cpu)

both used full install provided in download section.  The client = xpsp3

[dward]

OK, getting back to the subject of getting the default product working on Win32….

I've talked to Mr JLAN himself, and it seems that the step of disabling SMB over TCP/IP (referred to as 'native SMB' on the Wiki) on your Windows server may actually be a crucial installation step, even when you are using the default Win32 JNI implementation. This all depends on your OS configuration and the network you happened to be plugged in to.

So our suggested refined installation instructions would be this:

1. Before starting the alfresco server, run this command

netstat -an‍

check for an entry of 0.0.0.0:445. If port 445 is in use then disable the local SMB service as described here

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/File_Server_Subsystem#Native_SMB_collisions

2. Reboot and start the Alfresco Server

3. Run the command

nbtstat -n‍

Check for the CIFS server name. If the name is not there then check the log for errors. Is the DLL on the path? Is the JNI code enabled in the config? Check firewall settings.

Other useful tests:

• Telnet to the CIFS server IP on port 139/445, check Windows/socket is listening


• Try to connect from the same system on Windows using Start->Run, or equivalent, and enter '\\<servername' or `\\<ipaddr>'


• Try the same test from another Windows client


• If the IP address works but the name doesn't then you can try adding an entry to the lmhosts file in <windows>\system32\drivers\etc.


• There is usually a file called lmhosts.sam, Windows Explorer might not show the extension. It needs to be called 'lmhosts', then add an entry of <ipaddr> <servername>'


• Use Wireshark/tcpdump to packet trace the network to see what is going on, what port is the client trying to connect to etc.

If you can confirm that this works for you, and allows the use of "net use" commands to mount drives, then we will promote it to a more prominent part of the installation instructions.