Critical Read-Only Problem

[phil.lochner.cc]

We have our files shared via SMB on a Leopard 10.5 server (fully
patched). AFP is not turned on.

I'm using Office 2008, fully patched, on Leopard 10.5.4 clients.

Every file I open that's on the server, either Excel or Word (and
probably Powerpoint as well, haven't tried it yet) opens up as Read-
Only. It doesn't matter if I use File > Open or if I double click the
file directly from the Sharepoint.

The files are not read only, however. I can open up the same Word
document in say, Texteditor, make a change, and save it just fine. I
can rename or delete or move the file using the Finder, so I know I
have all the right permissions to it. I can open the same file in
OpenOffice and save it just fine. All my ACLs and permissions check
out from the server end. I can duplicate this problem on any client in
my network, with the majority of the files on the Leopard xserve.

If use the Finder to copy the same Word document to a share on a
Windows 2003 server, it opens up fine. If I use the Finder to copy the
same Word document to another location on the Xserve, it still opens
up as Read Only.

PC users that have Office 2003 also connect to the SMB shares on the
Leopard server and haven't had any problems. They are not trying to
open any of the same files - again, it's not about the file being
locked or set to read only, as other applications can open and save
the files, just not Word 2008 or Excel 2008.

Any ideas? This is.. well, infuriating that none of our Office 2008
clients can save to any Word or Excel files on our Leopard server!

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Every file I open that's on the server, either Excel or Word (and
probably Powerpoint as well, haven't tried it yet) opens up as Read-
Only. It doesn't matter if I use File > Open or if I double click the
file directly from the Sharepoint.

I don't support a Leopard Server sharing via SMB to Macs but do the
clients still create the hidden "._filename" files (the resource forks)
that you'd see when saving to a Windows share? If so, could these be
read only? You'd need to check permissions via Terminal.

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
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[Phil]

Thanks for your input, however there aren't any DS Store or ._filename
files in the folder. I can go into the server in Terminal and do a
chomod 777 filename.doc, and it'll still open up as Read Only. I can
even create a completely blank document, save it as Test.doc, and it
will immediately become Read-Only as soon as I save it!

Again, I don't think this has anything to do with the actual file
permissions of the file. I can open any of these files using vi or
OpenOffice or Text Editor and save them just fine. It's just Office
2008 that's creating this problem for me. I have uninstalled Office
and reinstalled it but unfortunately my Open License media came
preinstalled with SP1, so I can't narrow the problem down to SP1 or
not.

The problem also seems to exist on Tiger clients using a fully patched
Office 2008. I haven't had a chance to try it out with Office 2004
yet, however. My next step is to enable AFP sharing on the share and
see if that still gives me a problem.

Any other ideas?

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

The problem also seems to exist on Tiger clients using a fully patched
Office 2008. I haven't had a chance to try it out with Office 2004
yet, however. My next step is to enable AFP sharing on the share and
see if that still gives me a problem.

Any other ideas?

Nothing definitive. Leopard makes use of ACLs exclusively now and
doesn't support the old owner/group/everyone model.

If you were to connect as an administrator from the workstation to the
server, do you still see problems? The admin account should have Full
Access.

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[Phil]

We figured it out today. POSIX permissions for the Everyone group were
set to "None" - apparently the Office 2008 programs aren't fond of
this choice. We use ACLs, so setting POSIX for Everyone to Read and
Write isn't a huge deal for us. We used the excellent "TinkerTool
System" program instead of the clunky WGM to inspect and edit our
permissions.

We also discovered that ACLs are not very happy during propagation
with group names that contains spaces. Therefore, "MYDOMAIN\Domain
Admins" was consistently rejected by TinkerTool System, but "MYDOMAIN
\Users" or any local group name worked fine. WGM always seemed to
error silently when I propagated these groups, which made for strange
Get Info lists, and unruly ACL behavior.

 

[Decker 12]

Unfortunately, I spoke too soon and this problem has not been figured out. I
ended up creating a new topic with some very specific information that I have
gleaned from about 8 hours worth of messing around with this problem.