Files deleted over network

Question

Files deleted over network

Hi, some of users over the network accidentally deleted a folder from XServe, and he asked if it can be recovered, when someone deletes a file/folder over network OSX reports that "the item will be deleted immediately", is this true? it wont going to be stored in some "Network Trash Folder"? or ".Trashes"? or "Temporary Items"??
And if it really wont be recovered, is there a way to prevent this in the future? like to tell OSX Server to put all the files/folders deleted over network to be stored in a special folder for a certain time to prevent loosing important files accidentally or by other users??

Thanks

XServe, Mac OS X (10.5.2), XServe RAID 3.5TB

Posted on Jun 29, 2008 11:42 AM

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Answer 1

MrHoffman

Level 10

146,443 points

Jun 29, 2008 2:56 PM in response to Ahmad muhtaseb

So you disbelieve the "this is going to happen now" message? Ok...

Barring recovery from on the disk using low-level recovery tools (unlikely to succeed outside a case where the box is immediately halted), the files are gone and very likely with the data overwritten.

Most everyone seems to learn the +you need to have backups of your data+ lesson sooner or later.

In this case, apparently just now.

(My own lesson was some years ago.)

Far greater losses than a few files accidently deleted can arise should a disk corruption or disk failure. RAID is NOT a recovery path for file deletions or software volume corruptions, either. Set up your system backups with Time Machine and Time Capsule or any of various other available means, and set up to maintain the continuity and availability of your data.

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Answer 2

Jun 29, 2008 3:54 PM in response to MrHoffman

Time Machine??
1- thats a very expensive solution for my 3.5TB XRAID!
2- time machine has its own problems, files being created and removed within one hour wont be backed up at all by the mighty time machine..
3- what did people do before there was Leopard and Time machine?!
4- you wanna tell me theres no way to tell the most advanced and "secured" system in the world not to immediately delete files that has been remotely moved to trash?!

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Answer 3

Jun 30, 2008 8:19 AM in response to Ahmad muhtaseb

Ok here is the idea coming from 10.4.11 os X server admin ... i would not see it working differently on 10.5.x ... ACLs can help you obtain a finer grain on file control over AFP ... i created a user's share named test created a corresponding sharepoint and modified the ACLs on the folder to read write but not delete hence your users can modify the file in read write mode but cannot move them out to the trash. You can look around for a fine utility named sandbox here :

http://www.mikey-san.net/sandbox/

hence your users wont be able to delete items shared in this specific folder . you need to go to the sharing tab of WorkGroup Manager then select your share fine tune your accesses and then chose to create a custom ACL for that shared folder , enabling your users to read write but not delete hence moving the files to the trash wont delete anything. All they will obtain is a dialog box mentionning they do not have sufficient privileges for the operation.

Does that answer your question ?

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Answer 4

Jun 30, 2008 10:52 AM in response to Bertrand Stern1

I used to do what you suggest on Tiger, I but since the server and clients have been on Leopard the deny delete ACL doesn't work.

Wish I knew why

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Answer 5

Jun 30, 2008 11:17 AM in response to Ahmad muhtaseb

time machine on the server is a bad idea..
get your self a good tape backup system, use Retrospect or BRU and back up every night, if you have the cache get a LTO4 tape system turn on compression and back up over 1Tb with each tape.

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Answer 6

Jun 30, 2008 11:38 AM in response to Steve Krawcke

Steve Krawcke wrote:
time machine on the server is a bad idea..

Why is that exactly? We had time MAchine running on Leopard server on Xserve and used it to keep a backup of half of an Xserve RAID to the other half of the XServe RAID. It worked great for a while - it even saved a couple of people a lot of pain because they threw something out inadvertently. However, it eventually quit working. Not sure why. Seems like when it got to the point where it was supposed to make a new full backup it couldn't do it. Any thoughts?

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Answer 7

Jun 30, 2008 2:45 PM in response to Ahmad muhtaseb

Bertrand> This seems a nice idea, but its not exactly what i need, people still need to delete files from the server, but sometimes they delete important things and im looking for a way that the OSX Server keeps the remotely deleted file for a certain amount of time so it can be restored if needed. many times users accidentally delete files from the server and hit the "OK" button without noticing they just delete an important file from the server and not from there HD, for example, in Apple Share IP on OS9 if you delete a file over the network it would keep it in the user Trash and he empties it, and if he for example restarted his computer, the file on the ASIP would be stored in "Network Trash Folder".. why the mighty OSX Server doest have this great ability?!

Steve> Tapes is great for backup and archiving, but its not what i am really looking for, it has the same problem i have with Time Machine, time machine wont backup a file copied to the server and accidentally deleted within an hour, so Tapes, wont backup a file copied and deleted within a day..

WelshDog2> just a question: if i dont have any partition on my XRAID, how can i make it backup its self on its own HD's?! is this possible?! it wont solve my problem but its good to know if this can be done..

Thank you all guys for your replies, i really appreciate it..

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Answer 8

Jun 30, 2008 3:50 PM in response to Ahmad muhtaseb

at least with a tape backup you only loose 1 day worth of work not the whole project, depending on how much things change you can set up the incremental back up to run more than once a day, making it ever more current.

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Answer 9

MrHoffman

Level 10

146,443 points

Jun 30, 2008 4:02 PM in response to Ahmad muhtaseb

If the folks can't be trusted with the delete command or with reading a clear warning,then provide a script or a version control system or a droplet or some other similar solution that keeps folks from clobbering their file data; keep them away from deleting the data.

These folks are trusted -- they have delete access to these files (possibly their own files) -- and they're not apparently sufficiently cautious. Remove that access; revoke the trust.

A RAIDset is not a backup. It's not an archive. A RAIDset guards against some numbers of spindle failures, but does not guard against errant delete commands, nor against volume corruptions or such. You need to move the data to another disk in the array (not part of the RAIDset), or to a separate RAID or direct-attach storage (DAS) or Network Attached Storage (NAS) array, or another SAN array. And that can be a commercial DAS or NAS or SAN device, or a Time Capsule, or otherwise.

I'm not aware of a journaling file system (akin to what Rational ClearCase can provide with its Virtual Object Base structures) that's around for Mac OS X. While I haven't checked to see if ClearCase has been ported, I'm guessing you probably don't want to install and manage it here.

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Answer 10

Jun 30, 2008 4:28 PM in response to Ahmad muhtaseb

As much as you can do a fake .trash alias on local accounts to move all the "trashed" items to root account that is only readable by an admin or a super admin , as much AFP in its os X inception made away with network trashes ... but you might want to look there:

http://www.damontimm.com/blog ... someone actually could setup an ubuntu server with Network Trashes ...

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