[Samba] File/folder with non-Latin characters

[Ehsan Akhgari]

Hi all,

We have a corporate LAN, with users working in Windows XP Pro.  I have
implemented a Linux backup solution, which uses Samba to mount Windows
shares, and copies files to backup directories, which are shared using
Samba, so that I can grab backed up copies of files from a Windows
client using the Samba share.  I'm using Samba 3.0.14a on Ubuntu
Breezy (using the 3.0.14a-6ubuntu package).

The problem is, we have a lot of files and folders which have
non-Latin (Persian) characters in their name.  Samba doesn't seem to
be able to read any of them.  The files' contents are copied properly,
but the file names get corrupted.  The file names appear as, e.g.,
"??????????.xls" from the shell, and "_____2.xls" from a Windows XP
client browsing the samba share containing the backed up files.   The
folders, however, will all get copied empty.  I mean, the contents of
a folder with a Persian name is not navigated by Samba at all.

Losing the file names is a major problem, but folders being backed up
empty is even a bigger one.  To show you how I do the job, here are
the commands that I use:

mount -t smbfs "\\\\$server\\$share" "/mnt/$server/$share" -o
uid=xyz,gid=xyz,ro,username=WinUserName,password=abc
rsync  -W -r -l -t -x --force --exclude-from=excludes.txt  -z
--modify-window=10 "/mnt/$server/$share" "backup/$server/$share"
umount "/mnt/$server/$share"

How can I solve this problem?  The ideal solution I'm seeking is the
Linux server being ablt to save file names in UTF-8 (which, I guess,
should work from Windows side).

Thanks for any help!

--
Ehsan Akhgari
mailto:ehsan.akhgari at gmail.com