Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-25 Thread John

 -Original Message-
 From: centos-boun...@centos.org 
 [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of Filipe Brandenburger
 Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 8:13 PM
 To: CentOS mailing list
 Subject: Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server
 
 Oi Miguel,
 
 On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 15:24, Miguel Medalha 
 miguelmeda...@sapo.pt wrote:
  Thank you for caring to look for and post the code.
 
 No problem! Glad to help.
 
  At first I became very excited about it. But then I tried it...
 
  It does work. The problem is that it suffers from the same 
 illness as
  runfilex does: it takes forever. The process starts very 
 swiftly but each
  new processed page takes longer and longer until it all 
 slows to a crawl.
  Worse yet, Distiller goes on to use enormous ( 90%) 
 amounts of CPU time.
 
  I just measured the process as folllows, for the same set of files,
  corresponding to a 32 page publication in A3 format:
 
  rundirex: 3m42s
  runfilex: 1h29m54s
  Wikipedia code: 1h14m55s
 
 That is really weird, since it's only sorting a list before starting
 the processing, but once the processing is started, it does exactly
 the same in both cases (the only difference is that in one case
 filenameforall is used and in the other case forall is used over
 an array with the sorted list of files).
 
 Do you have a support contract with Adobe? If you do, I think you
 should bring up this issue with them and try to figure out where the
 huge performance difference is coming from, since it should not.
 
  I suppose I will end up creating a FAT32 partition on the 
 server just for
  this purpose.
 
 and:
 
  I just turned dir_index OFF with tune2fs. Now the directory 
 order is the
  same as the inode order. This makes the order of files 
 predictable and
  in fact turns out to solve my problem.
 
  With dir_index turned OFF on that filesystem, when a copy is made to
  another directory (even from Windows on a Samba share) the
  alphanumeric order is preserved. I will just ask the workstation
  operators to copy the PS files to a new folder when they are all
  ready. Distiller is watching that folder and will process 
 the files in the
  normal way, using the rundirex file.
 
 I don't think turning dir_index off will make the order as predictable
 as you want it. It may be a good enough work around for now, but it
 might lead to strange problems in the future that you may end up
 having to deal with again.
 
 I would really advise you to investigate why when you list the files
 in the order you want in the input file it takes so long.
--
Filipe, it is possible it is taking so long to do a sort because when
doing it, it caches it on the client side of Distiller also + does it on the
Samba Server to. IE; Sorts on Both Sides.

I have had this happen in .Net. When doing a sort in .Net the default is to
sort on the client and the server.

JohnStanley

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-25 Thread Miguel Medalha

 Filipe, it is possible it is taking so long to do a sort because when
 doing it, it caches it on the client side of Distiller also + does it on the
 Samba Server to. IE; Sorts on Both Sides.


   
I tried it, several times, on a standalone Windows workstation and the 
same happens.
I am not saying that the sorting takes too much time; the whole process 
takes too much time.

And please note that it also happens with the runfilex.ps code provided 
by Adobe, which does not sort but instead presents Distiller with a list 
of files to process, instead of letting it rely on the dir order. 
Sorting is not the problem here.

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-25 Thread Les Mikesell
Miguel Medalha wrote:
 Filipe, it is possible it is taking so long to do a sort because when
 doing it, it caches it on the client side of Distiller also + does it on the
 Samba Server to. IE; Sorts on Both Sides.


   
 I tried it, several times, on a standalone Windows workstation and the 
 same happens.
 I am not saying that the sorting takes too much time; the whole process 
 takes too much time.
 
 And please note that it also happens with the runfilex.ps code provided 
 by Adobe, which does not sort but instead presents Distiller with a list 
 of files to process, instead of letting it rely on the dir order. 
 Sorting is not the problem here.

Sounds like a bug in the program.  Maybe it runs a separate instance for 
  each page in that mode and doesn't release any memory until it is all 
finished.  On something smaller or less complex it might not make much 
difference, but if the memory use pushes into swap it will take much longer.

By the way, yet another really-contorted workaround would be to run 
VMware server or virtualbox (both free) on the centos box with a windows 
guest to get a reliable NTFS network drive.  If you have resources to 
spare on this server you could even run distiller there so you could 
shut down the workstations as soon as the final run starts.  It isn't 
the most efficient way to do things, but I've had some running that way 
for years with no unexpected problems.  The only inconvenience is that 
at least in the VMware server case on centos 5, whenever you update the 
kernel and reboot, you have to run a script that recompiles the vmware 
module before the guest will run.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-25 Thread Miguel Medalha

 Sounds like a bug in the program.  Maybe it runs a separate instance for 
   each page in that mode and doesn't release any memory until it is all 
 finished.  On something smaller or less complex it might not make much 
 difference, but if the memory use pushes into swap it will take much longer.

 
Yes, that's what it seems to me. As I said before, it starts processing 
swiftly but soon each new page takes longer and longer until it crawls. 
CPU time reaches 98% and the memory footprint keeps increasing untill 
the end of the process. This happens even on a standalone Windows 
workstation, not only over the network. I can report this to Adobe but I 
don't have too much hope about the attention such a large company is 
going to give to such an issue...

 By the way, yet another really-contorted workaround would be to run 
 VMware server or virtualbox (both free) on the centos box with a windows 
 guest to get a reliable NTFS network drive.  If you have resources to 
 spare on this server you could even run distiller there so you could 
 shut down the workstations as soon as the final run starts.

I thought of doing that but it really is not realistic at the moment in 
my environment. It is overkill. It would be much easier to put a small  
FAT32-formated partition on the server just for that purpose. The PS 
files are not kept. After processing they are discarded, only the 
resulting PDF is used and archived. For now I will stick with a EXT3 
partition with dir_index off and use rundirex like we always did. It 
works well this way: 3 to 4 minutes to render a complete publication.

Thank you for your tips. Even if I don't use them now, the information 
stays. Maybe it will be needed one of these days.

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-24 Thread Miguel Medalha

 Hi,

 You might want to try to look into the Distiller side of things.
   

That's what I always did. I am a DTP guy.
 1) I believe you are using Rundirex.txt file to convert all the .ps's
 into one .pdf. This page from Adobe confirms that it will take the
 files in directory order under Windows:

 http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=318674
 -- Acrobat Distiller for Windows will process the files in the order
 in which you put them into the folder and create the PDF pages in the
 order in which it processes the files.
 -- Acrobat Distiller for Mac OS will process the files in alphabetical 
 order.
 (one solution would be getting a mac, hehehe).

 Strange that you never hit the wrong order problem before, since
 according to that page, you should...

   
Regardless of what that paper says, Distiller has ALWAYS processed the 
files in alphabetical order under Windows. I have been doing so since 
2000 and Acrobat Distiller 4. We are now at 9. I refer, of course, to 
the use of rundirx.

 2) That page also talks about Runfilex.ps file, which is basically the
 same, only you have to list each .ps file in the order you want them
 to be included.
   

I already addressed that on my first post. I tried runfilex.ps but then 
Distiller takes 30 to 40 minutes to do the same job that it now does in 
3 to 4 minutes, which really is not an option for a newspaper at closing 
time.

I will do some more experiences, from the Distiller side and the Linux 
side, and I will report here.

Thank you for your answers.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-24 Thread John R Pierce
Miguel Medalha wrote:
 Regardless of what that paper says, Distiller has ALWAYS processed the 
 files in alphabetical order under Windows. I have been doing so since 
 2000 and Acrobat Distiller 4. We are now at 9. I refer, of course, to 
 the use of rundirx.
 

again, Windows NTFS directories are inherently stored in sorted order 
because they are B-Tree indexes on the filename.

if this distiller process is being run from a DOS batch job in 
Windows, you could perhaps use something like...

for /f %%F in ('dir /b /on *.ps') DO @\path\to\distiller  %%F 

to run it on all *.ps files in the current working directory in 
alphabetic order.




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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-24 Thread Miguel Medalha

 again, Windows NTFS directories are inherently stored in sorted order 
 because they are B-Tree indexes on the filename.

 if this distiller process is being run from a DOS batch job in 
 Windows, you could perhaps use something like...

 for /f %%F in ('dir /b /on *.ps') DO @\path\to\distiller  %%F 

 to run it on all *.ps files in the current working directory in 
 alphabetic order.
   

Please note that what Distiller is doing is not run on all *.ps files 
in alphabetic order.  If only that were the case, I wouldn't be here 
bothering people...
Instructed by a special PS file, Distiller is running a set of complex 
operations on a group of files in alphabetic order.

I can modify that special PS file to make Distiller process the files in 
any order I want.
The problem is that when the order is not provided by the filesystem 
itself, the process takes forever.
That's why I was looking for a solution at the filesystem level. I was 
trying to understand the inner workings of EXT3 and looking for a 
workaround.

Thank you for your tip, though. Maybe some day I will need it.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-24 Thread Ross Walker
On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Miguel Medalha miguelmeda...@sapo.pt wrote:

 again, Windows NTFS directories are inherently stored in sorted order
 because they are B-Tree indexes on the filename.

 if this distiller process is being run from a DOS batch job in
 Windows, you could perhaps use something like...

 for /f %%F in ('dir /b /on *.ps') DO @\path\to\distiller  %%F 

 to run it on all *.ps files in the current working directory in
 alphabetic order.


 Please note that what Distiller is doing is not run on all *.ps files
 in alphabetic order.  If only that were the case, I wouldn't be here
 bothering people...
 Instructed by a special PS file, Distiller is running a set of complex
 operations on a group of files in alphabetic order.

 I can modify that special PS file to make Distiller process the files in
 any order I want.
 The problem is that when the order is not provided by the filesystem
 itself, the process takes forever.
 That's why I was looking for a solution at the filesystem level. I was
 trying to understand the inner workings of EXT3 and looking for a
 workaround.

 Thank you for your tip, though. Maybe some day I will need it.

Have you tried what the different codepages do to sort order in Samba?

Check out these options:

dos charset
unix charset
display charset

-Ross
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-24 Thread Miguel Medalha

 (...) add the definition of a bubble sort routine before
 that (which I got from Wikipedia), and then modify /RunDir into the
 snippet below. (...)

   
Thank you for caring to look for and post the code.

At first I became very excited about it. But then I tried it...

It does work. The problem is that it suffers from the same illness as 
runfilex does: it takes forever. The process starts very swiftly but 
each new processed page takes longer and longer until it all slows to a 
crawl. Worse yet, Distiller goes on to use enormous ( 90%) amounts of 
CPU time.

I just measured the process as folllows, for the same set of files, 
corresponding to a 32 page publication in A3 format:

rundirex: 3m42s
runfilex: 1h29m54s
Wikipedia code: 1h14m55s

It would be faster with the computers we have at work (runfilex takes 
about 40m) but you can see the relative magnitudes here.
It really is not an option for the stressful environment of a closing 
newspaper...

I suppose I will end up creating a FAT32 partition on the server just 
for this purpose.

Thank you again for pointing me to the PostScript FAQ Wikipedia page. 
It reminded me of the times when I was reading it on BBS'es with the 
help of a 2400 bps modem link... :-)

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-24 Thread Miguel Medalha

 You don't necessarily have to wait to see what the Distiller would do.
 ls -U shows the files unsorted, in the directory order, that is
 probably the order in which the Distiller is using them.

   
Yes, Distiller uses the directory order. I made an experience at home. I 
copied 10 files by hand, one by one, from Windows to a CentOS machine.

Copy order

F08C.ps
F06C.ps
F03C.ps
F05C.ps
F10C.ps
F02C.ps
F07C.ps
F04C.ps
F01C.ps
F09C.ps

I obtained the following results.

EXT3 inode numbers
(manually sorted here) match the copy order
---
6998658 F08C.ps
6998659 F06C.ps
6998660 F03C.ps
6998661 F05C.ps
6998662 F10C.ps
6998663 F02C.ps
6998664 F07C.ps
6998665 F04C.ps
6998666 F01C.ps
6998667 F09C.ps

EXT3 Directory Order (ls -U1)

F04C.ps
F02C.ps
F03C.ps
F05C.ps
F09C.ps
F08C.ps
F10C.ps
F07C.ps
F01C.ps
F06C.ps

Distiller Order
matches Directory order
-
F04C.ps
F02C.ps
F03C.ps
F05C.ps
F09C.ps
F08C.ps
F10C.ps
F07C.ps
F01C.ps
F06C.ps

I see that the directory order does not match the inode order (which is 
the same as the copy order). Would this be due to the current 
asynchronous nature of filesystem operations? Let's try that: I will now 
reboot the server machine with the sync option on filesystem mount.
...
Rebooted with sync on that filesystem. Copied the files again to a newly 
created dir, etc. The results are the same. Why doesn't the directory 
order reflect the inode order?

Time for further study.
Thank you again!
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- FINALLY SOLVED!

2009-01-24 Thread Miguel Medalha

 Rebooted with sync on that filesystem. Copied the files again to a newly 
 created dir, etc. The results are the same. Why doesn't the directory 
 order reflect the inode order?

   

Because of dir_index!

I just turned dir_index OFF with tune2fs. Now the directory order is the 
same as the inode order.

This makes the order of files predictable and in fact turns out to solve 
my problem.

With dir_index turned OFF on that filesystem, when a copy is made to 
another directory (even from Windows on a Samba share) the alphanumeric 
order is preserved. I will just ask the workstation operators to copy 
the PS files to a new folder when they are all ready.
Distiller is watching that folder and will process the files in the 
normal way, using the rundirex file.

This solution is even better than the initial situation: since we can 
now predict the order in which the pages will be processed, we can 
manipulate the order at will by doing multi-phased copies to the folder, 
in any order we want, instead of being limited to the alphanumeric one 
provided by NTFS :-)

So dir_index ON (and my ignorance of the inner workings of EXT3) was 
to blame for this confusion, from the beginning!

What a trip this was (sometimes in circles)! Thank you very much to all 
who contributed!
Great community!


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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-24 Thread Craig White
On Sat, 2009-01-24 at 20:24 +, Miguel Medalha wrote:
 Thank you again for pointing me to the PostScript FAQ Wikipedia
 page. 
 It reminded me of the times when I was reading it on BBS'es with the 
 help of a 2400 bps modem link... :-)

and you thought that 2400 bps was fast too I bet. Having started at 300
bps, I was shocked at how fast 1200 bps was.

that was a couple of eons ago

Craig

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-24 Thread Miguel Medalha

 and you thought that 2400 bps was fast too I bet. Having started at 300
 bps, I was shocked at how fast 1200 bps was.

 that was a couple of eons ago
   
That reminded me that I still used a 1200 one for a while, too.
When the first 14,400 modems appeared, I could not believe the speed. 
The cost was almost that of gold. In fact, they were so expensive that I 
had to buy one 50-50 with a friend. A ISA internal one because an 
internal one was a little cheaper. We then shared it: one week for me, 
one week for him. :-)

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-24 Thread Filipe Brandenburger
Oi Miguel,

On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 15:24, Miguel Medalha miguelmeda...@sapo.pt wrote:
 Thank you for caring to look for and post the code.

No problem! Glad to help.

 At first I became very excited about it. But then I tried it...

 It does work. The problem is that it suffers from the same illness as
 runfilex does: it takes forever. The process starts very swiftly but each
 new processed page takes longer and longer until it all slows to a crawl.
 Worse yet, Distiller goes on to use enormous ( 90%) amounts of CPU time.

 I just measured the process as folllows, for the same set of files,
 corresponding to a 32 page publication in A3 format:

 rundirex: 3m42s
 runfilex: 1h29m54s
 Wikipedia code: 1h14m55s

That is really weird, since it's only sorting a list before starting
the processing, but once the processing is started, it does exactly
the same in both cases (the only difference is that in one case
filenameforall is used and in the other case forall is used over
an array with the sorted list of files).

Do you have a support contract with Adobe? If you do, I think you
should bring up this issue with them and try to figure out where the
huge performance difference is coming from, since it should not.

 I suppose I will end up creating a FAT32 partition on the server just for
 this purpose.

and:

 I just turned dir_index OFF with tune2fs. Now the directory order is the
 same as the inode order. This makes the order of files predictable and
 in fact turns out to solve my problem.

 With dir_index turned OFF on that filesystem, when a copy is made to
 another directory (even from Windows on a Samba share) the
 alphanumeric order is preserved. I will just ask the workstation
 operators to copy the PS files to a new folder when they are all
 ready. Distiller is watching that folder and will process the files in the
 normal way, using the rundirex file.

I don't think turning dir_index off will make the order as predictable
as you want it. It may be a good enough work around for now, but it
might lead to strange problems in the future that you may end up
having to deal with again.

I would really advise you to investigate why when you list the files
in the order you want in the input file it takes so long.

Boa Sorte!
Filipe
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-23 Thread John

 -Original Message-
 From: centos-boun...@centos.org 
 [mailto:centos-boun...@centos.org] On Behalf Of Miguel Medalha
 Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 3:29 PM
 To: CentOS mailing list; sa...@lists.samba.org
 Subject: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

http://code.google.com/p/samba-dirsort-vfs/

Did you try that? I think someone recommended it to you. If it does indeed
work which I do not think it will for your situation, send me a personal
mail. Although I think your real problem lies in your processing software in
the file ordering. I would have a really good look at the software doing it.
Why because The Gimp can do this with no problem and it is OSS (file
ordering).

JohnStanley

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Miguel Medalha

 http://code.google.com/p/samba-dirsort-vfs/
 Did you try that? I think someone recommended it to you.
Well, I did try to compile it but make fails on all the Linux computers 
I have access to. They all run CentOS 5.2. It would be nice to have a 
.rpm... I am a sysadmin, not a programmer, I am not able to solve most 
compile errors.
 (...) think your real problem lies in your processing software in
 the file ordering. I would have a really good look at the software doing it.
   

The problem lies in EXT3. I discovered that if I mv the files to another 
directory the files will then appear on the samba shares in 
alphanumerical order and will be processed by Acrobat Distiller 
accordingly. The move can even be done by Windows Explorer working on 
the Samba share.

This seems a bit strange to me. Why doesn't EXT3 present the files in 
alphanumerical order after they are first created one by one but then 
presents them alphanumerically after a bulk move to another directory?

Also, I connected a FAT32 formated USB flash drive to the server and 
directed Distiller to there. The files are correctly processed at the 
first trial. I suppose I will install a smallish FAT32 formated IDE disk 
on the server just for this purpose.

Thank you to all who answered my questions. We form a great community 
indeed!
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Steve Thompson
On Fri, 23 Jan 2009, Miguel Medalha wrote:

 This seems a bit strange to me. Why doesn't EXT3 present the files in
 alphanumerical order after they are first created one by one but then
 presents them alphanumerically after a bulk move to another directory?

This sounds to me like the dir_index option was applied to a file system
that didn't originally have it and an fsck -Df wasn't run at the time.

Steve

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Miguel Medalha

 This sounds to me like the dir_index option was applied to a file system
 that didn't originally have it and an fsck -Df wasn't run at the time.

That may well be the most relevant information given here! I will 
*certainly* give it a try.

Thank you!
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread William L. Maltby

On Fri, 2009-01-23 at 19:43 +, Miguel Medalha wrote:
 snip

  (...) think your real problem lies in your processing software in
  the file ordering. I would have a really good look at the software doing it.

 
 The problem lies in EXT3. I discovered that if I mv the files to another 
 directory the files will then appear on the samba shares in 
 alphanumerical order and will be processed by Acrobat Distiller 
 accordingly. The move can even be done by Windows Explorer working on 
 the Samba share.
 
 This seems a bit strange to me. Why doesn't EXT3 present the files in 
 alphanumerical order after they are first created one by one but then 
 presents them alphanumerically after a bulk move to another directory?

In addition to the other reply about the dir_index/fsck reply, keep in
mind that a typical move (mv dir/* newdir/) will present the list of
files in alphanumeric order to the mv/cp command. So regardless of the
underlying order in the original directory, the order in the target
directory should be alphanumeric.

In that case, I would expect your software, which apparently processes
the directory itself, would see the stuff in the new directory in the
desired order, as seems to be indicated by your results above.

 
 Also, I connected a FAT32 formated USB flash drive to the server and 
 directed Distiller to there. The files are correctly processed at the 
 first trial. I suppose I will install a smallish FAT32 formated IDE disk 
 on the server just for this purpose.

There has to be a better solution. Maybe the mv as a predecessor to the
application processing would be acceptable, presuming the dir_index
facility is really not working as hoped?

 
 Thank you to all who answered my questions. We form a great community 
 indeed!
 snip sig stuff

I still think the dir_index _ought_ to do what you need it to do. But
I've never had to depend on it for that purpose so it is just wishful
supposition on my part.

-- 
Bill

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Les Mikesell
Miguel Medalha wrote:

 (...) think your real problem lies in your processing software in
 the file ordering. I would have a really good look at the software doing it.
   
 
 The problem lies in EXT3. I discovered that if I mv the files to another 
 directory the files will then appear on the samba shares in 
 alphanumerical order and will be processed by Acrobat Distiller 
 accordingly. The move can even be done by Windows Explorer working on 
 the Samba share.
 
 This seems a bit strange to me. Why doesn't EXT3 present the files in 
 alphanumerical order after they are first created one by one but then 
 presents them alphanumerically after a bulk move to another directory?

Directories grow as they are filled the first time.  If you use a shell 
script with a wildcard to do the move, the shell will sort the list on 
the command line as it expands it, so the names are linked into the new 
directory in sorted order.  However if you repeat this in the same 
directory instead of creating new ones each time it may not continue to 
work as existing empty slots may be reused in a different order.

 Also, I connected a FAT32 formated USB flash drive to the server and 
 directed Distiller to there. The files are correctly processed at the 
 first trial. I suppose I will install a smallish FAT32 formated IDE disk 
 on the server just for this purpose.

Did you consider sharing a directory from the machine running distiller 
and cifs-mounting it on the linux side to get ntfs behavior?   Also, I'm 
curious about the timing of the runs.  It doesn't sound like the file 
operations are grouped atomically.  How do you ensure that the whole set 
is present when distiller starts, or that only one set is present?  If I 
were doing it, I'd probably create a new tmp directory for each set of 
files (which should fix the ordering as a side effect) and rename it to 
the expected name after all files are present so you see all of them or 
none.  Or, I might put cygwin sshd on the windows box and use scp or 
rsync to copy the files over in a batch, then start the Distiller run 
(if you can start it from the command line).

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 lesmikes...@gmail.com

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Miguel Medalha

 I still think the dir_index _ought_ to do what you need it to do. But
 I've never had to depend on it for that purpose so it is just wishful
 supposition on my part.

   
I am now almost certain that dir_index will solve the problem. I already 
remotely did fsck -fD to that filesystem.
Now I will have to wait for monday to do the Distiller stuff.

Thank you.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Les Mikesell
Miguel Medalha wrote:
 I still think the dir_index _ought_ to do what you need it to do. But
 I've never had to depend on it for that purpose so it is just wishful
 supposition on my part.

   
 I am now almost certain that dir_index will solve the problem. I already 
 remotely did fsck -fD to that filesystem.
 Now I will have to wait for monday to do the Distiller stuff.

I thought dir_index worked with a hash of the filename.  Without knowing 
the hash technique I wouldn't assume that the hash sort order would 
match the unhashed sort order - but it might.

-- 
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Miguel Medalha

 Did you consider sharing a directory from the machine running distiller 
 and cifs-mounting it on the linux side to get ntfs behavior?
That is out of question. The Windows machines are graphic workstations 
which are not all connected all the time and the Distiller service is 
essential to the network.

Also, I'm curious about the timing of the runs.  It doesn't sound like the 
 file 
 operations are grouped atomically.  How do you ensure that the whole set 
 is present when distiller starts, or that only one set is present?
This is a very peculiar implementation. As I said om my first post, we 
are a newspaper and, as all newspapers, we don't have a fixed time to 
close the edition. It closes when it is ready, that's all.

The PDFs for print are automatically produced one by one from PostScript 
files. The PS files fall on a folder watched by Acrobat Distiller and 
after being stable for more than 10 seconds the conversion begins. Each 
one contains only one page, which will then be joined to others to form 
a plan for a platesetter.

When all the pages have been produced, one of the graphics people places 
a special text file on a folder watched by Distiller and it begins to 
bulk process all the individual PS files: downsampling images, 
converting the color space to sRGB, consolidating font subsets, creating 
bookmarks and indexes, etc. The result is a multipage PDF for electronic 
distribution, containing the whole newspaper in the sRGB color space.

This always worked flawlessly until some days ago I replaced the win2k 
server with a new CentOS/Samba one. Everything worked better and faster 
except... the pages on this last PDF were in what seemed like an 
aleatory order. Ordering them by hand is a time consuming and error 
prone process, specially when everybody is now tired... Producing a 
newspaper is a pretty tense work, you know.

The difficulty with the scripted solutions proposed here is that we 
cannot know in advance at what time this process will take place and 
what the number of pages involved will be. At the end of each issue 
every minute counts. A watching process would have to poll the status of 
the workflow for several hours with very small intervals, which would be 
a waste of  processor cicles. And not a very elegant thing to do, I feel.


I am (for now...) convinced that the tip given to me here about 
dir_index and the use of  fsck -fD will solve this problem.
 Monday I will know. It will be a lng wait for me.

Thank you again.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Les Mikesell
Miguel Medalha wrote:
 Did you consider sharing a directory from the machine running distiller 
 and cifs-mounting it on the linux side to get ntfs behavior?
 That is out of question. The Windows machines are graphic workstations 
 which are not all connected all the time and the Distiller service is 
 essential to the network.

I was under the impression that the Distiller app was running under 
Windows.  If it isn't, it doesn't make much sense for it to expect NTFS 
filesystem semantics.

 When all the pages have been produced, one of the graphics people places 
 a special text file on a folder watched by Distiller and it begins to 
 bulk process all the individual PS files:

[...]

 The difficulty with the scripted solutions proposed here is that we 
 cannot know in advance at what time this process will take place and 
 what the number of pages involved will be.

Can't the trigger operation of placing the special text file be replaced 
by that person starting the script instead (perhaps click a button on a 
web page or something similar)?

  At the end of each issue
 every minute counts. A watching process would have to poll the status of 
 the workflow for several hours with very small intervals, which would be 
 a waste of  processor cicles. And not a very elegant thing to do, I feel.

While I wouldn't call it elegant, filesystem caching makes such things 
efficient enough that you'll never notice them running.  If you need a 
script that looks for a file to appear or expands a wildcard in a 
directory, go ahead and use one as long as you can sleep for at least a 
few seconds in the loop. It's cheaper than having a person rearrange 
something.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com




 
 
 I am (for now...) convinced that the tip given to me here about 
 dir_index and the use of  fsck -fD will solve this problem.
  Monday I will know. It will be a lng wait for me.
 
 Thank you again.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Miguel Medalha

 I was under the impression that the Distiller app was running under 
 Windows.  If it isn't, it doesn't make much sense for it to expect NTFS 
 filesystem semantics.

   

Yes, Distiller is running under Windows. When pages start to get ready, 
one of the graphic operators opens Distiller on his/her workstation 
which then starts watching a folder *on the server*.

 Can't the trigger operation of placing the special text file be replaced 
 by that person starting the script instead (perhaps click a button on a 
 web page or something similar)?

   
Yes, that would be a possibility. But those people have strong rooted 
habits and they are not in the least technically minded. As such, I 
would prefer to keep a workflow that has been functioning very well.

(By the way, that special text file is a snippet of PostScript code 
that instructs Distiller on where to find the files and how to process 
them. It would be needed anyway.)

Perhaps this obstacle will be removed by applying the correct parameters 
to the EXT3 file system, as suggested by William Maltby and Steve 
Thompson above in this thread: mount option dir_index followed by a 
fsck -Df. I will try this Monday.

Thank you for answering.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread John Stan
On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Miguel Medalha miguelmeda...@sapo.pt wrote:

 http://code.google.com/p/samba-dirsort-vfs/
 Did you try that? I think someone recommended it to you.
 Well, I did try to compile it but make fails on all the Linux computers
 I have access to. They all run CentOS 5.2. It would be nice to have a
 .rpm... I am a sysadmin, not a programmer, I am not able to solve most
 compile errors.

I will have a hack at compiling it later on because I am very
interested in it. If I manage to get it rolling I will send out a mail
to you and update the thread here on the list. I have had great
success with the clamav vfs module.

JohnStanley
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Filipe Brandenburger
Hi,

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 15:29, Miguel Medalha miguelmeda...@sapo.pt wrote:
 I am now almost certain that dir_index will solve the problem. I already
 remotely did fsck -fD to that filesystem.

I don't really think so... I believe dir_index is the default, your
filesystem was probably already created with the dir_index option, and
yet your files are out of order. Looking at the man page, it's sorted
by the hash of the filename. The purpose is not to present you the
files in order, but to make it quicker to open a file in a directory
with a huge number of files.

 Now I will have to wait for monday to do the Distiller stuff.

You don't necessarily have to wait to see what the Distiller would do.
ls -U shows the files unsorted, in the directory order, that is
probably the order in which the Distiller is using them.

HTH,
Filipe
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Filipe Brandenburger
Hi,

You might want to try to look into the Distiller side of things.

1) I believe you are using Rundirex.txt file to convert all the .ps's
into one .pdf. This page from Adobe confirms that it will take the
files in directory order under Windows:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=318674
-- Acrobat Distiller for Windows will process the files in the order
in which you put them into the folder and create the PDF pages in the
order in which it processes the files.
-- Acrobat Distiller for Mac OS will process the files in alphabetical order.
(one solution would be getting a mac, hehehe).

Strange that you never hit the wrong order problem before, since
according to that page, you should...

2) That page also talks about Runfilex.ps file, which is basically the
same, only you have to list each .ps file in the order you want them
to be included. Any chance you could use this one instead of Rundirex?
Is the list of included files fixed? Could the Runfilex.ps file be
somehow generated on the server based on the list of files that are
there (maybe by a CGI in a web interface) instead of copied by the
guy?

3) From what I see, Rundirex.txt (even with a .txt extension) is a
Postscript file. AFAIK, Postscript is a full programming language,
I've even seen webservers written in Postscript. I'm sure there is a
way to sort the list of files from inside Postscript. However, I don't
know the language and wouldn't know how to do that, or even how to
start looking for it. I searched on the web for someone that did
implement this on Rundirex.txt specifically, but with no luck. Maybe
someone else on the list will know Postscript, or you could try to
look for it in a Postscript list, I'm sure the solution will exist
there.

Good luck! And let us know how you fixed it!

Filipe
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server -- SOLVED (kind of...)

2009-01-23 Thread Filipe Brandenburger
Hi,

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 20:45, Filipe Brandenburger
filbran...@gmail.com wrote:
 3) Rundirex.txt (even with a .txt extension) is a Postscript file. [...]
 [...] way to sort the list of files from inside Postscript.

I think I did it.

Inside your Rundirex.txt, you should have this snippet:


/RunDir {   % Uses PathName variable on the operand stack
{ /mysave save def  % Performs a save before running the PS file
  dup = flush   % Shows name of PS file being run
  RunFile   % Calls built in Distiller procedure
  clear cleardictstack  % Cleans up after PS file
  mysave restore% Restores save level
}
255 string
filenameforall
} def


Right?  If so, then add the definition of a bubble sort routine before
that (which I got from Wikipedia), and then modify /RunDir into the
snippet below. Ghostscript has a .sort built-in that does exaclty
that, but I'm including it here as I don't know if Distiller will too.


% Bubble sort from Wikibooks page on PostScript
/mybubblesort
  { 1 index length 1 sub -1 1
  { 2 index exch 2 copy get 3 copy  % arr proc arr i arr[i] arr i arr[i]
0 1 3 index 1 sub
  { 3 index 1 index get % arr proc arr i arr[i] arr
imax amax j arr[j]
2 index 1 index 10 index exec
  {   % ... amax  arr[j]
4 2 roll
  }
if pop pop
  }
for % arr proc arr i
arr[i] arr imax amax
4 -1 roll exch 4 1 roll put put
  }
for
pop
  } bind def

/RunDir {   % Uses PathName variable on the operand stack
/nf 0 def   % Reset counter for number of files
{ 255 string copy   % Copy to a separate string (otherwise
would be overwritten)
  /nf nf 1 add def  % Increment counter of number of files
}
255 string
filenameforall

nf array astore % Put all filenames in an array
{ lt } mybubblesort % And sort it

{ /mysave save def  % Performs a save before running the PS file
  dup = flush   % Shows name of PS file being run
  RunFile   % Calls built in Distiller procedure
  clear cleardictstack  % Cleans up after PS file
  mysave restore% Restores save level
}
forall  % Execute original procedure, but
using sorted array
} def


Of course I did not test it with Distiller which I don't have... I did
test the part of sorting the list of files with Ghostscript and it
works.

Maybe word wrapping in the e-mail will ruin the snippet, if that's the
case please let me know and I'll send it attached to you.

Let us know if that works!

Filipe
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[CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Miguel Medalha
I hope someone familiar with the way Linux processes files can enlighten 
me on the following:

I recently replaced an old Windows 2000 server with a new machine 
running CentOS 5.2. It uses Samba 3.2.7 to serve a network of Windows XP 
clients.

We are a newspaper. We use Acrobat Distiller to batch-convert a folder 
of single-page PostScript files (for print) to a multipage PDF file (for 
electronic distribution).
Running on a workstation, Distiller watches the folder on a Samba share 
and does the conversion, automatically creating bookmarks, indexes and 
other information.

On the Windows server, Distiller processes the files by filename order:

M09010901A001C.ps
M09010901A002C.ps
M09010901A003C.ps

... and so on.

On the Linux server, Distiller processes the files in an order that 
seems arbitrary, for example:

M09010901A021C.ps
M09010901A005C.ps
M09010901A015C.ps

... and so on.

The order Distiller uses is NOT related to the time stamp of the files. 
I tried to copy the files to the watched folder one by one in the 
correct order; the result is the same.

This creates the need to open the final PDF and reshuffle the pages by 
hand, which is very time consuming and prone to error.

There is a workaround to this: use the runfilex script that comes with 
Acrobat: it can contain a list of files to convert, in the order you 
want. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable for us since the process 
then takes about 40 minutes (irrespective of platform or filesystem), 
instead of 3 or 4 minutes.

My question is: how is the order of files determined by Linux when a 
particular order is not explicitly required by a program?

I noted the following:

I have 4 files in a folder: file1.ps, file2.ps, file3.ps, file4.ps. When 
I order them by date, they appear in Windows Explorer in, say, the 
following order: 3, 4, 1, 2
If I copy them to a new folder one by one in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, they 
will still appear in the order 3, 4, 1, 2 when ordered by date. So, what 
information is transported with the files that makes the Linux server 
present them to the world in this order?

Does someone know a workaround to this situation or can someone point me 
to information about file ordering with Linux? By the way, I am using 
the EXT3 file system. I tried the same on a VFAT file system and the 
result is the same. It seems to be a Linux thing, not a file system thing.

Thank you for your patience.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Frank Cox
On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:28:41 +
Miguel Medalha wrote:

 My question is: how is the order of files determined by Linux when a 
 particular order is not explicitly required by a program?

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux-newbie/111044-change-order-files-directory.html

I have no idea if the script posted there works or not but I found that with a
quick google search.

-- 
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DRY CLEANER BUSINESS FOR SALE ~ http://www.canadadrycleanerforsale.com
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Miguel Medalha

 http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux-newbie/111044-change-order-files-directory.htm
I searched Google too, and I read that page. That doesn't work for us: 
the Windows users won't touch anything on the server (or Linux, for that 
matter) and I am not there every day. The file names change constantly. 
I cannot use a cron job because the time at wich the original files are 
ready is not always the same. This is a newspaper and closure time is 
very, very busy. When the issue is ready, they proceed to the process I 
described.

Thank you for answering.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Frank Cox
On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:46:29 +
Miguel Medalha wrote:

 I searched Google too, and I read that page. That doesn't work for us: 
 the Windows users won't touch anything on the server (or Linux, for that 
 matter) and I am not there every day. 

The Windows users wouldn't have to know that they are touching anything on
the server.  If that script will in fact work and getting it to run at the
appropriate time is the only problem, then set up something from the Windows box
to trigger it on your server. Click the pretty icon right here. The pretty
icon can set a flag or something on the server that your cron job can check for
and run if present.

-- 
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DRY CLEANER BUSINESS FOR SALE ~ http://www.canadadrycleanerforsale.com
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Les Mikesell
Miguel Medalha wrote:
 I hope someone familiar with the way Linux processes files can enlighten 
 me on the following:
 
 I recently replaced an old Windows 2000 server with a new machine 
 running CentOS 5.2. It uses Samba 3.2.7 to serve a network of Windows XP 
 clients.
 
 We are a newspaper. We use Acrobat Distiller to batch-convert a folder 
 of single-page PostScript files (for print) to a multipage PDF file (for 
 electronic distribution).
 Running on a workstation, Distiller watches the folder on a Samba share 
 and does the conversion, automatically creating bookmarks, indexes and 
 other information.
 
 On the Windows server, Distiller processes the files by filename order:
 
 M09010901A001C.ps
 M09010901A002C.ps
 M09010901A003C.ps
 
 ... and so on.
 
 On the Linux server, Distiller processes the files in an order that 
 seems arbitrary, for example:
 
 M09010901A021C.ps
 M09010901A005C.ps
 M09010901A015C.ps
 
 ... and so on.
 
 The order Distiller uses is NOT related to the time stamp of the files. 
 I tried to copy the files to the watched folder one by one in the 
 correct order; the result is the same.

Programs that read directories on their own normally find files in the 
order that they happen to appear in the directory.  In a newly created 
directory, that would likely be in the order that the files were added, 
but in existing directories, slots previously used and now free may be 
reused in any order and this may not be consistent across filesystem 
types. If you are processing on the linux side and not via samba, and 
your program will take a list of files on the command line instead of 
groveling through the directory itself, you might simply start it with a 
wild-card filename on the command line.  The shell will sort the list as 
it expands it so programs see the sorted list.

 There is a workaround to this: use the runfilex script that comes with 
 Acrobat: it can contain a list of files to convert, in the order you 
 want. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable for us since the process 
 then takes about 40 minutes (irrespective of platform or filesystem), 
 instead of 3 or 4 minutes.

That's very strange.  Maybe you should look for a different tool.  Won't 
ghostscript/psutils or OOo do this?

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 lesmikes...@gmail.com

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread John R Pierce
Miguel Medalha wrote:
 I hope someone familiar with the way Linux processes files can enlighten 
 me on the following:
 ...
 On the Windows server, Distiller processes the files by filename order:

 M09010901A001C.ps
 M09010901A002C.ps
 M09010901A003C.ps
   

Windows NTFS uses B-Tree for its directories so they are inherently 
alphabetically sorted.


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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread William L. Maltby

On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 14:06 -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
 Miguel Medalha wrote:
  I hope someone familiar with the way Linux processes files can enlighten 
  me on the following:
  ...
  On the Windows server, Distiller processes the files by filename order:
 
  M09010901A001C.ps
  M09010901A002C.ps
  M09010901A003C.ps

 
 Windows NTFS uses B-Tree for its directories so they are inherently 
 alphabetically sorted.

If the linux FS is efs2, maybe the dir_index option of mke2fs will doo
what you want? See man mke2fs. It says it uses hashed b-trees, but for
speed.

 snip

HTH
-- 
Bill

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Miguel Medalha

 The Windows users wouldn't have to know that they are touching anything on
 the server.  If that script will in fact work and getting it to run at the
 appropriate time is the only problem, then set up something from the Windows 
 box
 to trigger it on your server. Click the pretty icon right here. The pretty
 icon can set a flag or something on the server that your cron job can check 
 for
 and run if present.

   
Ok, that's a good tip. I can investigate that. Thank you.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Miguel Medalha

 If you are processing on the linux side and not via samba, and 
 your program will take a list of files on the command line instead of 
 groveling through the directory itself, you might simply start it with a 
 wild-card filename on the command line.  The shell will sort the list as 
 it expands it so programs see the sorted list.

   
The processing is done via Samba. Acrobat Distiller is not simply 
processing a list of files, it is consolidating a group of files onto a 
single file, discarding repeated graphic objects and creating a single 
subset of fonts from the various font subsets present on the original pages.

 There is a workaround to this: use the runfilex script that comes with 
 Acrobat: it can contain a list of files to convert, in the order you 
 want. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable for us since the process 
 then takes about 40 minutes (irrespective of platform or filesystem), 
 instead of 3 or 4 minutes.
 

 That's very strange.  Maybe you should look for a different tool.  Won't 
 ghostscript/psutils or OOo do this?
   
The tools you quote do not apply in this case. I am not talking about 
office style PDFs, I am talking about full professional PDFs for 
printing presses, with embedded color profiles such as ISO Newspaper, 
JPEG2000 compression, bicubic resampling, etc. Not even Ghostscript does 
that kind of thing. I wish it did, but it doesn't.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Miguel Medalha

 If the linux FS is efs2, maybe the dir_index option of mke2fs will doo
 what you want? See man mke2fs. It says it uses hashed b-trees, but for
 speed.
   
That is the kind of information I am looking for. Thank you!
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Craig White
On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 20:28 +, Miguel Medalha wrote:
 I hope someone familiar with the way Linux processes files can enlighten 
 me on the following:
 
 I recently replaced an old Windows 2000 server with a new machine 
 running CentOS 5.2. It uses Samba 3.2.7 to serve a network of Windows XP 
 clients.
 
 We are a newspaper. We use Acrobat Distiller to batch-convert a folder 
 of single-page PostScript files (for print) to a multipage PDF file (for 
 electronic distribution).
 Running on a workstation, Distiller watches the folder on a Samba share 
 and does the conversion, automatically creating bookmarks, indexes and 
 other information.
 
 On the Windows server, Distiller processes the files by filename order:
 
 M09010901A001C.ps
 M09010901A002C.ps
 M09010901A003C.ps
 
 ... and so on.
 
 On the Linux server, Distiller processes the files in an order that 
 seems arbitrary, for example:
 
 M09010901A021C.ps
 M09010901A005C.ps
 M09010901A015C.ps
 
 ... and so on.
 
 The order Distiller uses is NOT related to the time stamp of the files. 
 I tried to copy the files to the watched folder one by one in the 
 correct order; the result is the same.
 
 This creates the need to open the final PDF and reshuffle the pages by 
 hand, which is very time consuming and prone to error.
 
 There is a workaround to this: use the runfilex script that comes with 
 Acrobat: it can contain a list of files to convert, in the order you 
 want. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable for us since the process 
 then takes about 40 minutes (irrespective of platform or filesystem), 
 instead of 3 or 4 minutes.
 
 My question is: how is the order of files determined by Linux when a 
 particular order is not explicitly required by a program?
 
 I noted the following:
 
 I have 4 files in a folder: file1.ps, file2.ps, file3.ps, file4.ps. When 
 I order them by date, they appear in Windows Explorer in, say, the 
 following order: 3, 4, 1, 2
 If I copy them to a new folder one by one in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, they 
 will still appear in the order 3, 4, 1, 2 when ordered by date. So, what 
 information is transported with the files that makes the Linux server 
 present them to the world in this order?
 
 Does someone know a workaround to this situation or can someone point me 
 to information about file ordering with Linux? By the way, I am using 
 the EXT3 file system. I tried the same on a VFAT file system and the 
 result is the same. It seems to be a Linux thing, not a file system thing.

You might want to look closely at the file names in Linux.

Windows is not case sensitive but Linux is.

In Windows, you cannot create the 2 files, TEST.DOC and test.doc in the
same directory but in Linux you can. It may be that some of these files
are stored differently as in file1.ps and FILE2.PS etc.

Also, you might want to check out some alternate settings...


dos filemode = yes (Share setting only)
case sensitive = no (share setting only)
default case = lower (share setting only)

Craig

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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Miguel Medalha

 You might want to look closely at the file names in Linux.

 Windows is not case sensitive but Linux is.

 In Windows, you cannot create the 2 files, TEST.DOC and test.doc in the
 same directory but in Linux you can. It may be that some of these files
 are stored differently as in file1.ps and FILE2.PS etc.

 Also, you might want to check out some alternate settings...


 dos filemode = yes (Share setting only)
 case sensitive = no (share setting only)
 default case = lower (share setting only)

   
I am aware of the differences in case treatment between Linux and 
Windows. This is not related to case.
The filenames in question are automated and ALWAYS take the following form:

M09010901A001C.ps
M09010901A002C.ps
M09010901A003C.ps

etc, etc.


(By the way, the Samba share settings are not share only. According to 
the man pages, share settings can be used globally. The inverse is not 
true: global settings can only be used globally.)

Thank you for your answer, though.
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Les Mikesell
Miguel Medalha wrote:
 If you are processing on the linux side and not via samba, and 
 your program will take a list of files on the command line instead of 
 groveling through the directory itself, you might simply start it with a 
 wild-card filename on the command line.  The shell will sort the list as 
 it expands it so programs see the sorted list.

   
 The processing is done via Samba. Acrobat Distiller is not simply 
 processing a list of files, it is consolidating a group of files onto a 
 single file, discarding repeated graphic objects and creating a single 
 subset of fonts from the various font subsets present on the original pages.

The quick/dirty fix might be to cifs-mount a windows directory where the 
linux side wants to see it and let the windows side work natively if 
that gives the behavior you want.  Using the automounter might help if 
the windows side is not always available.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Akemi Yagi
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com wrote:

 The quick/dirty fix might be to cifs-mount a windows directory where the
 linux side wants to see it and let the windows side work natively if
 that gives the behavior you want.  Using the automounter might help if
 the windows side is not always available.

If you go that route, this wiki has useful tips:

http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/WindowsShares

See section 3. Even-better method

Akemi
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Les Mikesell
Akemi Yagi wrote:
 On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 The quick/dirty fix might be to cifs-mount a windows directory where the
 linux side wants to see it and let the windows side work natively if
 that gives the behavior you want.  Using the automounter might help if
 the windows side is not always available.
 
 If you go that route, this wiki has useful tips:
 
 http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/WindowsShares
 
 See section 3. Even-better method

Or if you want to really go crazy, you might look at Alfresco 
(http://www.alfresco.com), which among other things implements a cifs 
server in java so you can apply an assortment of business rules to what 
the clients see as you might over http - although I don't really know if 
those rules include control over sort order.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] OT? File order on CentOS/Samba server

2009-01-22 Thread Miguel Medalha
I just verified the filesystem features with tune2fs -l and the 
dir_index feature is already present. So, no luck here.
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