What file system to make a drive Mac/Windows accessible + permissions? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Realizm · 01-15-2004, 08:08 AM

I just got a 120 gig hard drive and I'd like to share it between my XP and OS X computers.

I'm kind of leaning towards making it external, but I don' tknow what file system I should format it with. Preferably, I'd like to make it so files on either OS would only be accessible by someone with the proper permissions.

Is it possible for me to set this up on a drive alone, or should I set up a server with this drive and then set up some kind of account based options on it?

yakimushi · 01-15-2004, 08:25 AM

Without permissions you'd be fine with a FAT32 file system.

However, permissions in WinXP and OSX are two entirely different systems.

I'm pretty sure that the only way be your second option, setting up a server and setting the permissions there. I have no idea where'd you go from there though, maybe a linux install with Samba?

Boner · 01-15-2004, 01:12 PM

Using a drive with permissions between two machines will present some issues. Permissions are associated with users, typically the owners, of the file.

Do you have the same exact user setup on both machines? Unless you are using some system to share account data across all of your machines, your permissions may be worthless.

Windows has UIDs tied to permissions. If I were to have a file owned by Boner on one Windows machine, and were to move that file to a second machine, the second machine probably wouldn't understand the UID assigned to that file since it will be a big hairly Windows UID instead of a username. Add MacOS into this, and I think you'll have quite a challenge getting security information on the drive to work seemlessly across your machines.

You might look into something like PGP to encrypt instead.

01-15-2004, 08:08 AM	#1 (permalink)
Realizm Insane Location: A fuzzy cloud.	What file system to make a drive Mac/Windows accessible + permissions? I just got a 120 gig hard drive and I'd like to share it between my XP and OS X computers. I'm kind of leaning towards making it external, but I don' tknow what file system I should format it with. Preferably, I'd like to make it so files on either OS would only be accessible by someone with the proper permissions. Is it possible for me to set this up on a drive alone, or should I set up a server with this drive and then set up some kind of account based options on it?

01-15-2004, 08:25 AM	#2 (permalink)
yakimushi Addict	Without permissions you'd be fine with a FAT32 file system. However, permissions in WinXP and OSX are two entirely different systems. I'm pretty sure that the only way be your second option, setting up a server and setting the permissions there. I have no idea where'd you go from there though, maybe a linux install with Samba?

01-15-2004, 01:12 PM	#3 (permalink)
Boner Insane Location: Plugged In	Using a drive with permissions between two machines will present some issues. Permissions are associated with users, typically the owners, of the file. Do you have the same exact user setup on both machines? Unless you are using some system to share account data across all of your machines, your permissions may be worthless. Windows has UIDs tied to permissions. If I were to have a file owned by Boner on one Windows machine, and were to move that file to a second machine, the second machine probably wouldn't understand the UID assigned to that file since it will be a big hairly Windows UID instead of a username. Add MacOS into this, and I think you'll have quite a challenge getting security information on the drive to work seemlessly across your machines. You might look into something like PGP to encrypt instead.