Hidden Files, Starting with a '.', Mostly Resource

[varsenault]

Hi,

Some of the CIFS clients to our Alfresco repository are Mac OS X and Linux OSes. These machines will sometime create hidden files (starting with a ".", dot character) when creating or modifying content in the CIFS repository. I'm not talking about the Mac OS X ".DS_Store". I'm talking mostly about Mac OS X resource forks. These files have almost the same name as their "content" file countepart : if I upload a file called "Document.pdf" there will also be a file called ".Document.pdf" created in Alfresco. Is there a way to prevent the creation of those files in the CIFS directory (without creating an Alfresco rule for automatically deleting the files that starts with a ".")?


Thanks.

[mikeh]

Hi,

Unfortunately those resource fork files are necessary for some Mac filetypes. There's way too much information on Wikipedia should you need some bedtime reading.

It is possible to stop the ".DS_Store" files being created, but it sounds like you may already know that. Should you not have come across it, this tip from Apple details how to stop those particular files from spreading onto a network drive. Note that the "fix" applies to the currently logged-on user only.

There is a shareware product you might like to investigate, called BlueHarvest which claims to automatically remove ".DS_Store" and resource fork files from specified network drives. I've never tried the software, so cannot recommend it personally, but if you'd like to trial it and report back here, I'm sure others will find your results useful.

Regards,
Mike

[nuandaeb]

Has anyone come up with a solution to this?
It looks like there's an open issuehttp://issues.alfresco.com/browse/AWC-1336 on this topic, but no solution seems to have been implemented yet.

I'm placing files in the repository via Alfresco's webdav interface. I don't want the resource files (ie. files preceded with '._') to show up as it's far too confusing for users.

I tried BlueHarvest. It seems to be more reliable in OS X Tiger (10.4.x) than in 10.3.9, but it's still not perfect.
For example, I tried copying a directory into mulitple spaces. The resource files didn't appear 3 out of 4 times, but that's still not 100% of the time.

I originally tried creating a rule that moves these files to a specific space when they come into the repository, but Mac OS X's native webdav client would generate an error when trying to copy files into spaces where this rule was applied. I assume the resource fork files are copied first, and that the webdav client fails as soon as it tries to copy the actual file because it can't find the corresponding resource file (since the rule has already moved it).

My next attempt was to try to create a rule that categorizes any file starting with '.' with a specific category name (e.g. 'Files to Delete'). My plan was to create a scheduled action that would pick these files up periodically (e.g. every few minutes). The problem is that I found that the categorization rule was not being applied consistently. Some of my files were being categorized, while others were not.

I'm working in the community 2.1 and 2.9B versions.

Anyone have any ideas?

[fernandoe]

Hi All,

Was just wondering if anyone had a response to the issues mentioned earlier in this thread?

The files preceded by "._" are becoming quite cumbersome.

Any an all help would be greatly appreciated!

Fernando

[sylvain78]

These files are generally "hidden", so I think that alfresco should treat them as such.

What about a Hidden aspect? - Now that I think of it, I'm suprised it doesn't already exist!

[mikeh]

It's not really Alfresco's position to hide them, as they might mean different things to different operating systems. And as you can access Alfresco form Windows, *nix, Mac, etc. there's no common rule for them all.

If they really bother you, it shouldn't be too hard to write a rule to delete them on creation and/or a script to search and destroy existing ones.

Mike

[rays]

If they really bother you, it shouldn't be too hard to write a rule to delete them on creation and/or a script to search and destroy existing ones.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I agree. It shouldn't be too hard to write a rule….

In fact, I and my colleagues have been able to write a number of rules which, only when run manually, do the needful.

What we cannot seem to write is a single version of a rule which successfully acts across the repository, deleting all these pesky files when they are uploaded using WebDav, even if the very same rule is applied manually on the same space thereafter and works!

So, why doesn't the same condition/action rule work automatically on Upload or Update?

All contributions will be gratefully received and trialed.

Ray Saunders

PS: In response to earlier comment, BlueHarvest does do the job in our trials when configured correctly on the user's Mac OS X (only 10.4.+, 10.5.+ tested).

[iantopanto]

can we somehow create a rule that checks whether the filename begins with ._ ? 

I have gone through the process of trying to create a rule to do this but from the options currently available I dont think its possible.

[bobhall]

It's not really Alfresco's position to hide them, as they might mean different things to different operating systems. And as you can access Alfresco form Windows, *nix, Mac, etc. there's no common rule for them all.

If they really bother you, it shouldn't be too hard to write a rule to delete them on creation and/or a script to search and destroy existing ones.

Mike

Where this is the biggest problem is in the Web page listing of documents. No one is interested in viewing these files from within the Alfresco application. Mac OS X generates the files and makes them invisible to their users within OS X. Alfresco should filter them out of file lists when viewed from within Alfresco.

[jager13579]

Has anyone been able to successfully filter "._" files out of searches yet or find them through rules? Could someone please provide an example? I know someone said they had some rules to get some files out but I haven't been successful at all. Deleting them manaully (without a script or something) is not an option as the file server will be used heavily and there would be no way to manage this.

Specifically, I am using Alfresco Share's Image Summary dashlet. However, all the "._filename.jpg" are showing up first and without thumbs so it looks really bad. I have not been able to get them out of the lucene query.

Thanks for the help.