[Samba] Mac .DS_Stores

[Ed Kasky]

At 02:45 AM Tuesday, 11/25/2008, Mike Gallamore wrote -=>
>Hi all. We have a file server using samba with a lot of Mac clients.
>Mac uses files called .DS_Store to store information about the layout
>of the files in the directory. We have a hierarchal storage system,
>and don't want to back up the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands
>of .DS_store files. Currently we have a policy in place that these
>files don't get backed up, but they still get created in the samba
>shares, which is annoying because when a non-Mac user accesses the
>folder there are a bunch of these files that they don't care about,
>and when you restore something you get thousands of warnings that
>these files can't be restored. Has anyone out there found a better
>solution for Mac clients? I guess my concern is if I block the files
>from being created in the first place the Mac clients will go bonkers
>because they can't change the view of the directory.


 From Wikipedia:

".DS_Store (Desktop Services Store) is a hidden 
file created by Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X operating 
system to store custom attributes of a folder 
such as the position of icons or the choice of a 
background image. By default, the Mac OS X Finder 
will create a .DS_Store file in every folder that 
it accesses, even folders on remote systems (for 
example, folders shared over a SMB or AFP 
connection) and even if the user has only 
customized the appearance of the folder by moving 
its Finder window. This is in contrast to the 
preexisting system for the same purpose used in 
previous versions of the Finder, which would 
merely place a number of invisible files at the 
root of the volume being accessed (even on alien 
file systems), always storing the settings and 
metadata for all of the folders in the entire 
volume within this single set of files.

"After complaints from users about these files 
being created on remote systems, Apple posted an 
article on its support site detailing how to 
disable the creation of remote .DS_Store files 
over network connections. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629

"Note that suppressing the creation of .DS_Store 
files is only possible on network drives such as 
file servers – they will still always be created 
on local drives, including flash drives or 
anything that appears as a flash drive. The 
creation of .DS_Store and related files on 
flash-like drives is known to cause problems with 
some embedded devices that do not expect those 
files, including several popular models of digital photo frames.

"Although these files were initially primarily 
used by the Finder they were envisioned as a more 
general purpose store of metadata about the 
display options of folders such as icon position 
and view settings. For example, since Mac OS X 
10.4 "Tiger", .DS_Store files contain the 
Spotlight Comments of all the folder's files.

"Prior to the release Mac OS X 10.5, .DS_Store 
files would be visible on the Windows filesystem."

Depending on how many Mac's are in your 
environment, the above referenced solution will 
take you some time to implement.  HTH...

Ed

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