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Turning off AFP. SMB in a Mixed Win/Mac Environment


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Hi,

 

I am planning a project to simplify a mixed Windows 10 & Mac Mojave office environment by switching off AFP so that only SMB is used to connect to our NAS.

 

The only outstanding (application-independent) issue encountered so far is when a (Mac/Win) user has a file open, a computer running the other operating system does not see/respect the open file lock and allows the same file to be opened/modified - resulting in app crashes and sometimes file corruption…

 

Vectorworks 2019 is fine if all Project Sharing master files are changed from AFP to SMB, but this has to be done manually on a per-project basis, and we have hundreds of projects. 

I’m concerned about how projects reference materials, in-document links to other file locations, etc, if AFP were turned off one morning!

 

- Has anyone any experience of a similar environment/project?

- Is it possible to update all VW2018 & 2019 projects at once via a utility app?

- Am I always going to face file access issues between OSX and Windows?  😞

 

I also have to investigate Rhino 5...

 

Thanks!

 

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Locks through AFP will always behave otherwise than locks through SMB. That is totally independent of VW.

 

See also following articles of Jim Wilson, which are not only useful in the case of project sharing.

 

As for your other questions, sorry, I do not have any idea.

 

 

Edited by Nicolas Goutte
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
5 hours ago, bpbpbp said:

Vectorworks 2019 is fine if all Project Sharing master files are changed from AFP to SMB, but this has to be done manually on a per-project basis, and we have hundreds of projects. 

I’m concerned about how projects reference materials, in-document links to other file locations, etc, if AFP were turned off one morning!

Could you please elaborate on what you need to change per-project?

 

A file that has references does not store the protocol used to connect to the share or NAS device. The file stores the path.

On Mac, the path is similar to this: /Volumes/ShareFolder/path/to/source.vwx

On Win, the path is similar to this: \\Server\ShareFolder\path\to\source.vwx

 

As such, you switching from AFP to SMB does not require any changes to the File. 

 

Side note: The Mac allows you to mount a shared folder in multiple ways. For example, if the admin has shared a file at smb://OurServer/SharedFolder/WGR/File.txt. On the Mac, I can mount the Share in multiple ways (using Cmd+K). I can mount it as "smb://OurServer/SharedFolder/" or as "smb://OurServer/". Essentially, a user is allowed to specify his/her mounting point. The different mounting points will result in different paths to the text files. For the first mount, the path will be /Volumes/WGR/File.txt. The path to the 2nd mount will be /Volumes/SharedFolder/WGR/File.txt. If the text file was a vwx, you could imagine how specifying different mounting point will prevent the target file from automatically finding the source file. You can get around this issue by making sure all users on the team use the same mounting point, or you can use relative paths. With relative paths, VW will neglect the mount point. The only requirement when using relative paths is that the source and target file must be on the same volume.

 

5 hours ago, bpbpbp said:

The file lock issue between both OS's happens when both are on SMB 😞

I don't know about your NAS device, so I can't speak about what you've experienced. In our tests, we have only found that when you connect to a Synology NAS device using different protocols, the file locks (read and write (R/W) locks) are not respected. That is, if a user opens a file for R/W using SMB, another user can open the same file for R/W using AFP. This error is why we strongly recommend using only one protocol. We have never seen the case where two different users using the same protocol is allowed to open the same file simultaneously. If you have a reproducible example, I will be glad to set up a screen sharing session to see what is happening.

 

It is essential to point out that a user can connect to the same share using SMB and AFP at the same time. You should "Get File Info" (Cmd+I) on the file through the Finder window to see the protocol in use.

 

Thanks,

Tolu 

Vectorworks Inc.

 

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11 minutes ago, Tolu said:

Could you please elaborate on what you need to change per-project?

>> Hi Tolu! Thanks for the response.  Perhaps I misunderstood the VWX prompt that came up when I changed a Mac's file share method from AFP to SMB - VWX said 'Project Sharing is configured to use AFP not SMB'... or similar, and it would not open the project when only SMB connections were made. I will have to test again tomorrow.
If we move form AFP to SMB, I must anticipate 50 users seeing the message and not knowing what to do. I would prefer it if they saw no message at all.

 

11 minutes ago, Tolu said:

 

A file that has references does not store the protocol used to connect to the share or NAS device. The file stores the path.

On Mac, the path is similar to this: /Volumes/ShareFolder/path/to/source.vwx

On Win, the path is similar to this: \\Server\ShareFolder\path\to\source.vwx

 

As such, you switching from AFP to SMB does not require any changes to the File. 

 

Side note: The Mac allows you to mount a shared folder in multiple ways. For example, if the admin has shared a file at smb://OurServer/SharedFolder/WGR/File.txt. On the Mac, I can mount the Share in multiple ways (using Cmd+K). I can mount it as "smb://OurServer/SharedFolder/" or as "smb://OurServer/". Essentially, a user is allowed to specify his/her mounting point. The different mounting points will result in different paths to the text files. For the first mount, the path will be /Volumes/WGR/File.txt. The path to the 2nd mount will be /Volumes/SharedFolder/WGR/File.txt. If the text file was a vwx, you could imagine how specifying different mounting point will prevent the target file from automatically finding the source file. You can get around this issue by making sure all users on the team use the same mounting point, or you can use relative paths. With relative paths, VW will neglect the mount point. The only requirement when using relative paths is that the source and target file must be on the same volume.

 

I don't know about your NAS device, so I can't speak about what you've experienced. In our tests, we have only found that when you connect to a Synology NAS device using different protocols, the file locks (read and write (R/W) locks) are not respected. That is, if a user opens a file for R/W using SMB, another user can open the same file for R/W using AFP. This error is why we strongly recommend using only one protocol. We have never seen the case where two different users using the same protocol is allowed to open the same file simultaneously. If you have a reproducible example, I will be glad to set up a screen sharing session to see what is happening.

 

It is essential to point out that a user can connect to the same share using SMB and AFP at the same time. You should "Get File Info" (Cmd+I) on the file through the Finder window to see the protocol in use.

 

Thanks,

Tolu 

Vectorworks Inc.

 

 

Again, with a Mac that has only SMB shares connected, we opened an existing project and it gave the message that it could not be opened because Project Sharing was configured with AFP, not SMB...   if the protocol is not stored, then something else in VWX is giving me another issue t resolve 🙂

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
1 minute ago, bpbpbp said:

Perhaps I misunderstood the VWX prompt that came up when I changed a Mac's file share method from AFP to SMB - VWX said 'Project Sharing is configured to use AFP not SMB'...

Ah yes, you need to change the Network Protocol for each Project File from AFP to SMB via the Project Sharing dialog. 

This applies only to VW2019 Project Files. There is no utility to change all Project Files at once. 

 

Screen Shot 2019-05-07 at 11.36.38 AM.png

 

 

 
 
 
7 minutes ago, bpbpbp said:

Again, with a Mac that has only SMB shares connected, we opened an existing project and it gave the message that it could not be opened because Project Sharing was configured with AFP, not SMB...

Yes, because you have changed the protocol, VW is complaining..... but this not a "file locking" issue as you originally put it.  

 

Thanks,

Tolu

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

The "Network Protocol" setting is stored with the Project File -- not the Working File. The admin has to change it by opening his Working File, going to File -> Project Sharing... -> Settings tab.  Once modified, the change will be reflected in all users' Working File associated with that Project File. Changing this setting requires "administrative" permissions, so all users will not have permissions to change this setting. If every user is an admin, this is bad. 

 

 

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