RipperB
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Can I set per-user storage quotas on FC Server?

Hi-
We don't yet own FC server - I work for a school and we are hoping to implement it as a media server. It would be connected to our AD for user and group information. It would not be hosting user home folders, which is the way I understand user quotas are usually set in OS X server (via the Home tab for the user record in WorkGroup Manager). My question is: is there a way to set and enforce user level storage quotas on FC server under this scenario? We have some users who tend to unconsciously upload content with little consideration for how much space they are using.
I searched the Administration PDF, this forum as well as Googled this topic and have been unable to find any mention of it. Thanks for any advice or info!

Intel iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Mar 16, 2011 5:25 AM

by A. Richards,Solvedanswer
A. Richards A. Richards
Level 3 (625 points)
A:
I don't have much to add on the AD front, but yes, you can set quotas on volumes (and by extension, their shares) in Server Manager, and as far as I know the AD bind is only used for authentication, so managing the share should still fall to Server Manager on the share host.

Be advised though, you will probably not be able to stream video to editors from a single drive on an Xserve via AFP or SMB . There just won't be enough bandwidth and you will probably drop frames pretty often. It is possible to edit over Ethernet, but it takes some special network and NIC tuning. Seek ye the guys at Small Tree, they can show you the way.

Posted on Mar 16, 2011 12:19 PM

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RipperB

Q: Can I set per-user storage quotas on FC Server?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by A. Richards,Helpful

    A. Richards A. Richards Mar 16, 2011 6:31 AM in response to RipperB
    Level 3 (625 points)
    Mar 16, 2011 6:31 AM in response to RipperB
    Storage quotas are set at the storage level. FCSvr does not manage storage, it just sits on top of it and catalogs the contents of the storage. What are you using for storage? It also depends on how users are loading data onto the storage. If it is via FCSvr's client, then everything is executed as the user that installed FCSvr, not the user logged into the client. The only way a user's ID is tied to a file is if they are directly interacting with the storage (as with the Finder, for example). In that case you'd have FCSvr scan the storage after the data has been loaded in.

  • by RipperB,

    RipperB RipperB Mar 16, 2011 10:55 AM in response to A. Richards
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 16, 2011 10:55 AM in response to A. Richards
    Thanks so much for the reply.
    It's way too bad that the client Java app connects to the FCSvr as the user who installed FCSvr. If that's the case I'm not sure we'll even want to use the client, but will instead rely on SMB shares for Windows users and AFP shares for Mac clients.
    Initially at least, I would be using a locally attached drive on the xServe running FCSvr for storage. We're not a large production house - just a k-12 school looking for a way to better organize, manage and use multimedia content we create.
    After reading your post and doing some more research I'm thinking I can use Server Admin to enable quotas on the share, then use the edquota command for setting and managing individual user quotas. I assume if the server is bound to AD I can set quotas for AD users using this command since the AD will be in the server's directory search path.
    Since the server is not hosting net homes (we host those on a Windows box) I assume I cannot use WorkGroup Manager to do this.
    Once I get the test server set up with 10.6 server and FCSvr I'm going to try this approach. If you have any other suggestions or if you don't think this will work please let me know, and if anyone wants me to post back about how it worked out just let me know and I shall.
    Also in my reading I found this tool:
    http://www.webmin.com/
    which looks like it might be useful - there was some mention a while back on another board about using it to manage quotas on OS X server in the context of FCSvr when WGM is not an option, which is my case.
    Thanks again!

  • by A. Richards,Solvedanswer

    A. Richards A. Richards Mar 16, 2011 12:19 PM in response to RipperB
    Level 3 (625 points)
    Mar 16, 2011 12:19 PM in response to RipperB
    I don't have much to add on the AD front, but yes, you can set quotas on volumes (and by extension, their shares) in Server Manager, and as far as I know the AD bind is only used for authentication, so managing the share should still fall to Server Manager on the share host.

    Be advised though, you will probably not be able to stream video to editors from a single drive on an Xserve via AFP or SMB . There just won't be enough bandwidth and you will probably drop frames pretty often. It is possible to edit over Ethernet, but it takes some special network and NIC tuning. Seek ye the guys at Small Tree, they can show you the way.

  • by BenB,

    BenB BenB Mar 17, 2011 9:18 AM in response to A. Richards
    Level 6 (10,036 points)
    Audio
    Mar 17, 2011 9:18 AM in response to A. Richards
    "It's way too bad that the client Java app connects to the FCSvr as the user who installed FCSvr."

    Not true at all. The FCSvr client does in fact use the OS level authentication, and each user is logged into FCSvr as themselves. They use the same user name, password, as is put into the OS for authentication.

    You'll want to edit with proxies, it's fast enough and pretty seemless.

    I've looked at Small Tree, but some of the details are fuzzy, and I'm still looking for an FSCvr client using it. If anyone has leads, I'd love to know.

  • by A. Richards,Helpful

    A. Richards A. Richards Mar 17, 2011 11:25 AM in response to BenB
    Level 3 (625 points)
    Mar 17, 2011 11:25 AM in response to BenB
    Important distinction: you log into FCSvr with a unique user id based on you directory services, but when FCSvr physically interacts with the storage it does so as the user that installed it in the case of local devices or as the user that is used to authenticate a network device.

  • by RipperB,

    RipperB RipperB Mar 28, 2011 8:48 AM in response to A. Richards
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 28, 2011 8:48 AM in response to A. Richards
    Thanks so much to both of you for the info. Ben B I wanted to mark your post as helpful too but don't see the link to do so???
    Sounds as if when users connect over the network via the Java client, it will recognize them as who they are, bt local operations performed fromt eh server itself will be excuted as the user who installed FCS. Sound right?
    Anyway I've ordered a copy so will soon report back what I find myself.

  • by A. Richards,

    A. Richards A. Richards Mar 28, 2011 3:18 PM in response to RipperB
    Level 3 (625 points)
    Mar 28, 2011 3:18 PM in response to RipperB
    Other way around. The user logs into the Java client with their own account. The FCSvr software then grants that user permissions to do things within the FCSvr database (like edit metadata or upload assets) but any data created via the Java client is owned by the user that installed FCSvr. When users log into a network mount via the Finder, any interactions with the storage are done as that user (as usual). This means you can have a user with read-only access to the storage via the Finder actually write to that same space via FCSvr if the user that installed FCSvr has write access.

    Make sense?

  • by BenB,

    BenB BenB Mar 29, 2011 1:59 AM in response to A. Richards
    Level 6 (10,036 points)
    Audio
    Mar 29, 2011 1:59 AM in response to A. Richards
    It's a bit more complicated than that. And in any case, doesn't matter for what you're doing. No, you can't use FCSvr for quota control.