Storing your Attachments to a Windows Share from Linux

Debian and Ubuntu

To store attachments on a windows shared network drive using the VM version of MindTouch:

Open a console and log in as root.

Install smbfs since smbmount isn't available default:

apt-get install smbfs

Before we can mount the network share, we first need to determine the uid and gid MindTouch is running under:

ps aux

Also, check in the output under which name the process /usr/bin/mono runs

If you run the following command, column 1 is the username, 2 is the password, 3 is the UID, and 4 is the GID.:

cat /etc/passwd | grep www-data

Now that you have this information, you can make the mount command.

You can update an existing startupscript (nano /etc/rc5.d/S20samba , right before the "exit" line) so everytime MindTouch starts up it automatically mounts the windows-share. Example:

echo mounting attachments drive 
mount -t smbfs -o username=name,password=pass,workgroup=mydomain,rw,uid=33,gid=33 //server/share /var/www/dekiwiki/attachments

You should use the workgroup switch only if you are on a domain.

Finally, it is necessary to configure MindTouch to go one level deeper on its attachments share (since somehow it invokes commands to the root directory that are incompatible with the windows share).  Login as an admin onto your MindTouch site, go to the control panel, click on "configuration" and edit the key "storage/fs/path".  This key defaults to "/var/www/dekiwiki/attachments" and you should only put it one level deeper like: "/var/www/dekiwiki/attachments/leveldeeper".

Some considerations:

With an initial install of the VM version of MindTouch, the "/var/www/dekiwiki/attachments" folder doesn't even exist . It gets made the first time you upload an attachment. So the mount command will not work if you do not upload an attachment first and delete it again. (delete it to get it out of the database, otherwise if you invoke the mount command later the attachment will be under the mounted folder and thus unavailable untill you unmount the windows share again. If you try to open the attachment you will get an error message.)

If you allready have a running MindTouch installation and lots of attachments, it might be best to first create another folder to put your attachments in ( eg /attachments) , chmod it 777 and mount the windows share on this folder. Now in this folder create the one level deeper folder and copy all attachments to it. If the copying is done point the configuration key "storage/fs/path" in your MindTouch site to "/attachments/leveldeeper" and all should work.

CentOS, Red Hat, and Fedora

 Follow the instructions above but install the following package:

yum install samba

 and to turn Samba on so you can automatically mount the share, run the following:

chkconfig --levels 3 smb on
chkconfig --levels 06 smb off

then edit the start script by going to /etc/rc3.d/ and opening S91smb for editing. Add the following line before the "exit" line:

echo mounting attachments drive
mount -t smbfs -o username=name,password=pass,workgroup=mydomain,rw,uid=33,gid=33 //server/share /var/www/dekiwiki/attachments

SUSE and OpenSUSE

Follow the instructions for the Debian/Ubuntu setup but use YaST to install the package "samba" and its dependencies.

 Turn Samba on automatically with the following commands:

chkconfig --levels 3 smb on
chkconfig --levels 06 smb off

 then edit the start script by going to /etc/rc3.d/ and opening S91smb for editing. Add the following line before the "exit" line:

echo mounting attachments drive
mount -t smbfs -o username=name,password=pass,workgroup=mydomain,rw,uid=33,gid=33 //server/share /srv/www/dekiwiki/attachments