[Samba] Samba versus Dreamweaver

[Mike Brodbelt]

Keller Nicolas wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> I hope someone can help me with this one:
> 
> We're using Macromedia Dreamweaver 3 to publish local files from a NT4
> Server to our internet server running Redhat 7.3 / Samba 2.2.3a. Life could
> be so sweet but we're facing a strange problem: Users can't _overwrite_
> files edited by other users. Everytime someone tries to overwrite such a
> file the message "An error occurred - cannot put file.xxx. Access is
> denied." pops up. But they can delete them and this only happens inside
> Dreamweaver 3, overwriting a file with the normal Windows Explorer isn't a
> problem. I guess my Samba configuration below is right and Dreamweaver does
> some strange things.

It sounds like your problem is the Unix filesystem semantics not Samba.
To delete a file requires only write access to the *directory* that
contains that file - no permissions on the file itself are required. To
overwrite a file would require changing the data in the file, and so
needs write permission on the *file*. Windows explorer is, I'd guess,
actually deleting/recreating when you overwrite.

The normal way around this is to set the group ownership of the
directory to a group that contains all the users you want to have
access. Then set the SGID bit on the directory. From that point on, all
files created in that directory will inherit the group ownership of the
parent directory. Subdirectories will inherit both the group ownership
of the parent, and the SGID bit. Then you need to ensure that the umask
is set so that files are created group writeable. You'll (obviously)
also need to chage the group/permissions on the files that were created
before you set the SGID bit on the directory.

HTH,

Mike.