creeva

creeva@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:48:18 GMT

I really am not a fan of the lagoons

creeva@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:06:35 GMT

At mill hollow feeding lex - VCMA concert in the lagoons at 5:30

creeva@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:54:14 GMT

Waiting for lex to finish eating and then going to Cici's for the 2.99 pizza buffet that lasts from 2-4pm

creeva@gmail.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:44:10 GMT

Running @ghoulishcharm to the store

creeva@gmail.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:20:51 GMT

My old tmobile razr now becomes an alarm clock

creeva@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:13:12 GMT

Took out the dogs and did not get a snake bite and did not scream like a girl

creeva@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:50:57 GMT

I'm taking the dog out - that snake I saw earlier is going to crawl over my foot and I'm going to scream like a little girl in the dark

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:19:16 GMT

I am mourning that pepsi throwback is pretty much non existant now

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:41:38 GMT

Grocery shopping with a sleeping baby

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:40:52 GMT

posted a photo http://pi.pe/8szfwe

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:40:41 GMT

posted a photo http://pi.pe/ihbjrw

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:40:04 GMT

posted a photo http://pi.pe/vm1d2z

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:28:54 GMT

Huge two foot long garter snake out back - got photos but used Xie's camera so I don't know when I'll get them uploaded

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:41:10 GMT

posted a photo http://pi.pe/4pn2nj

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:40:27 GMT

posted a photo http://pi.pe/z6r86h

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:40:11 GMT

posted a photo http://pi.pe/6e9ivu

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:26:22 GMT

I'm awake - can I go back to bed

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:38:58 GMT

OMG - how did it become 2:30 - night all

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:37:43 GMT

Configuring pixel pipe to post to web services which include ping.fm that does the - scare of the duplicate post

creeva@gmail.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:35:01 GMT

Watching the series finale of six feet under four years late while waiting for pizza

creeva@gmail.com — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:52:52 GMT

working on two father's day blog posts

creeva@gmail.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:40:50 GMT

VCMA Is Performing At The Vermilion Fish Festival Saturday - http://ping.fm/b8SP7

creeva@gmail.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:53:22 GMT

New Blog Post - Becoming a Parent - Part 1 http://ping.fm/ZnSOP

creeva@gmail.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:26:43 GMT

I Need a Way To Consolidate File Shares - A DFS Replacement http://ping.fm/3GlKT

creeva@gmail.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:21:17 GMT

File shares are a pain.   In and of themselves they are not, but once you get past two or three - it get's painful.   Now I have multiple computers with multiple drives with multiple file shares per drive spread across my network.   What does this mean?   Well I'm the only one with knowledge of what is on the network and where it exists.   This means that the network is not only cumbersome for anyone else to use (and sometimes me) it make it nearly impossible if I want to tell someone to grab something off of the network if they come over and hook up to my wifi.

I've put quite a bit of thought into this. I want something that essentially can act as a transparent gateway to my other file shares. Something like Microsoft's DFS but cross platform. It would also be great if it could transform file shares but that isn't in the cards.   Before I go much further let's go over my specifications I want.

It must use CIFS/SMB file sharing

It must be able to combine file shares on demand into a single root

It would be nice to be able to split a file share root into two different sub directories

It must be cross platform WIN/OSX/*Nix

Preferably Windows or have a dead simple web interface

Must be able to handle problems transparently if a file share is offline

It must be able to span shares on multiple computers

Let's gove over each of these so I can give you my reasoning for each issue that I'm looking for before I get a dozen answers that I already know about that could fit the bill in some ways if I'm willing to sacrifice a requirement.

CIFS and SMB file sharing may be the domain of Windows, but it's a standard that every operating system can speak. While I could use something like NFS and get it working for almost all of the clients on my network, if my grandmother comes over and wants to put family pictures onto her laptop, I am not going to tell her to download an NFS client to install on her laptop to grab the pictures.   Unless I can direct her to a single file share it just won't work for me.

I want to point for an example here is sample layout I'm looking for:

\10.10.10.10share

Included folders include:

Movies

Pictures

Music

Documents

Software

User1

User2

webroot

Combining and splitting file shares I think this is one of the tricky ones.   Let's give the example of the fact that I have multiple shares contain movies I've ripped (larger harddrives would definitely help with this).   So I end up with shares that exists like movies1 and movies2.   What I would like is for all my movies to present themselves from the movies share. I don't want to have movies1 and movies2 sub directories displayed to the end user, I want them all in one directory. Alternatively for personal movies, like the ones I've shot for community band - I would like an option for that to link underneath my user directory as well as the movies directory.

Cross platform is a must. I choose CIFS/SMB as a standard because almost no extra software will need to be loaded on any computer to access them. Microsoft's DFS installed on windows servers does not work with non-MS operating systems - so this is a dead-end for me.

The server control software needs to be windows or a dead simple web interface. Why? Well I want anyone else using my network to be able to fix problems and reconfigure shares as needed without having to do it myself.   If I must turn to another setup, I will - but I would really like this requirement to be met.

Must be able to handle offline files gracefully.   If a machine is turned off I want the file to just not be there, if it's a folder with combined shares - the offline files should be absent. All of this should happen without the server software flipping out at all.   I've seen some solutions that do this and they flip out without having everything accessible all the time.

It should be able to span multiple computers, while something may work on a single computers (for windows I could do hard links) - it doesn't fix the issue of spanning multiple computers and this is something that is needed badly in my network environment.

So now I've given my personal requirements, what do you have as a recommendation to do this? Orignal From: I Need a Way To Consolidate File Shares - A DFS Replacement