Subject: [netatalk-admins] Subtle file corruption
From: Yuji Shinozaki (yuji@physics.unc.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 18 1999 - 19:44:35 EST
server: Sun Sparc 5 / SunOS 2.5.1 / netatalk-2.1.1
clients: MacOS 8.1 via Appleshare 3.8.1 (using ASIP)
I have run into a strange problem copying files from a netatalk volume:
We use RevRdist to maintain our clusters. I recently moved the source
volumes from an Appleshare 4.2.1 server to our netatalk server, to take
advantage of ASIP. The performance increase was astounding. [ A detail
that I should point out which may or may not be significant is that
RevRDist will normally mount things via AFP every time, so to "force" it
to use ASIP I use an applescript "wrapper" to do the ASIP mount and then
run RevRDist ].
However, we ran into a problem which I can only attribute to file
corruption: Certain programs (specifically Labview 4.x and Mathematica
3.0.1) are adversely affected by being copied from the netatalk volume.
In the case of Labview 4, specific Labview libraries don't ever load, and
in the case of Mathematica 3.0.1 the mathkernel always reports an "Out of
Memory" error. Using the EXACT set of source files on our old AS 4.2.1
via AFP (since it cannot do ASIP) works fine.
Further evidence: if I copy the installer disks to a netatalk volume,
and do an install from the ASIP mounted volume, it exhibits the exact
same problem (so now RevRDist is out of the equation), BUT when I put the
installer on a volume mounted on our newly-acquired ASIP6.1 server, the
installation works fine.
It would appear that even the installer files are getting corrupted either
on copying to or from the netatalk volume.
[ It just occurred to me that I am not sure whether I have tried the
installation using netatalk via AFP. Perhaps that might tell me if the
assumed occurs in transport or storage. Maybe something for me to
investigate. ]
My questions:
1) Has anyone noticed similar behavior? Anyone know what the
problem/solution is?
2) Does anyone know of a mac application that does bitwise compares or
file checksums, so that I can pinpoint the file/s that are getting
corrupted.
3) Anyone have a suggestion for debuggin this problem? Perhaps I might
try a newer version of netatalk. Wasn't there a change in the way the
AppleDouble info is stored recently?
Thanks for your time and sage advice...
yuji
---- Yuji Shinozaki Systems Administrator yuji@physics.unc.edu Dept of Physics and Astronomy http://www.physics.unc.edu Univ. of North Carolina - CH (919)962-7214 (voice) CB 3255 Philips Hall (919)962-0480 (fax) Chapel Hill, NC 27599
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