NAS MDB Sharing Problem

[sauvagii]

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place for a post of this
query
- but I'll try anyway.


At my workplace I have installed 2 Buffalo Terastation Pro II
rackmount drives.


Previous to this I had a small network set up for multiple laptops to
access some databases, offline from our main servers. This was an
extremely simple setup and just used Western Digital Mybook World
drives attached to the network. One of these drives failed, and we
decided to go up a level into a RAID system.


However - prior to the failure, multiple users could access a MS
Access Database. Since moving to the Terastation, this is now no
longer possible. Only one person can access the database file,
anyone
else gets no response when trying to open the MDB - no access splash
screen, nothing happens whatsoever. When the user closes the MDB,
someone else can access it again.


I've been told the Terastations run Samba, and therefore I wondered
if
it might be something to do with permissions etc. When I investigate
the permissions on the MDB file, there are Permissions for Everyone,
and 2 sets of Unix Permissions. If I try to alter the unix
permissions for Full Control, and apply these settings (either with
Vista or XP Pro) they are not saved.


Is this what may be causing the file lock or is it something else?
Sorry for the rookie question, but I've never come across this issue
before and I'm clueless about Samba. Its critical I get this to
work,
otherwise I've just wasted a lot of time and money on these drives!


Thanks

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Each user requires a minimum of Create and Update on the folder where the
MDB file exists. This is because Access creates a locking file (.ldb) when
the first user connects to the database, and updates that locking file as
subsequent users connect. It's usual (but not mandatory) to also grant them
Delete on the folder, so that Access can delete the locking file when the
last user disconnects.

Make sure that the permissions are such that the users can update files
created by other users.

 

[David W. Fenton]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in
:

At my workplace I have installed 2 Buffalo Terastation Pro II
rackmount drives.

What's the OS running on these? If it's not Windows, I'd never use
it for storing MDBs.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

What's the OS running on these? If it's not Windows, I'd never use
it for storing MDBs.

He mentions Unix and Samba later on in his posting.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place for a post of this
query
- but I'll try anyway.

This is an excellent place to ask such a question.

However - prior to the failure, multiple users could access a MS
Access Database.

As Linq points out this is not suggested.

See the "Splitting your app into a front end and back end Tips" page
at http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/splitapp/ for more info. See the
Auto FE Updater downloads page
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htm to make this relatively
painless.. The utility also supports Terminal Server/Citrix quite
nicely.

Since moving to the Terastation, this is now no
longer possible. Only one person can access the database file,
anyone
else gets no response when trying to open the MDB - no access splash
screen, nothing happens whatsoever. When the user closes the MDB,
someone else can access it again.

As Doug points out this could be a permissions problem. One way of
testing that is to ensure each user can create a Notepad file. You
can do this on the users account by navigating to the folder on the
server, right clicking and creating a .txt file.

I've been told the Terastations run Samba,

Given that Samba is not a Microsoft product you may run into issues
there such as corruptions. However, if I recall a few postings,
Samba has been working well for some people for a number of years now
so you may very well be ok.

and therefore I wondered

if
it might be something to do with permissions etc. When I investigate
the permissions on the MDB file, there are Permissions for Everyone,
and 2 sets of Unix Permissions. If I try to alter the unix
permissions for Full Control, and apply these settings (either with
Vista or XP Pro) they are not saved.


Is this what may be causing the file lock or is it something else?

Sure could be.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[sauvagii]

This is an excellent place to ask such a question.


As Linq points out this is not suggested.

See the "Splitting your app into a front end and back end Tips" page
athttp://www.granite.ab.ca/access/splitapp/for more info.  See the
Auto FE Updater downloads pagehttp://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htmto make this relatively
painless..   The utility also supports Terminal Server/Citrix quite
nicely.


As Doug points out this could be a permissions problem.  One way of
testing that is to ensure each user can create a Notepad file.   You
can do this on the users account by navigating to the folder on the
server, right clicking and creating a .txt file.


Given that Samba is not a Microsoft product you may run into issues
there such as corruptions.    However, if I recall a few postings,
Samba has been working well for some people for a number of years now
so you may very well be ok.

and therefore I wondered



Sure could be.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
   Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
   Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems athttp://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
   Tony's Microsoft Access Blog -http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

Thanks to all for their input.

All of our main databases have been split into front/backends. We
will likely be doing this with the problem database. However, this is
out of my control, I have no working knowledge of Access whatsoever,
so I have to wait on this being done. I have tried changing the
permissions as you guys have suggested but it doesnt work. The
permissions don't "stick" if that makes sense.

Thanks anyway all - I will keep at it!

Cheers for your support

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

As Doug points out this could be a permissions problem. One way of
testing that is to ensure each user can create a Notepad file. You
can do this on the users account by navigating to the folder on the
server, right clicking and creating a .txt file.

I've heard of situations where that's not adequate: where each user has
permission to create and update their own files, but not to update files
created by others.

To check for that, you'd want each user to create a text file as you've
described, but also to save changes to a text file created by some other
user.

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I've heard of situations where that's not adequate: where each user has
permission to create and update their own files, but not to update files
created by others.

To check for that, you'd want each user to create a text file as you've
described, but also to save changes to a text file created by some other
user.

Hmm, good point. Note to others. This is particularly important
should a user with such permissions compact the database. It may be
fine until then.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

All of our main databases have been split into front/backends. We
will likely be doing this with the problem database. However, this is
out of my control, I have no working knowledge of Access whatsoever,
so I have to wait on this being done. I have tried changing the
permissions as you guys have suggested but it doesnt work. The
permissions don't "stick" if that makes sense.

You need to figure out that sticky permissions part and that's up to
the NAS device manufacturer.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/