Can a java app write across a samba share

[jnorthr]

Hardware config:
windows XP home has shared folder with audit.txt file
ubuntu 8.10 laptop can see shared folder and audit.txt file.
I can use gedit from ubuntu to open and write audit entries into the audit.txt file then close it and audit trail entries are there. Great !

Is there any way using java/groovy client app on ubuntu, i can write a java program to write directly into audit.txt across the samba shared folder - or i am missing something :confused:

[SeanHodges]

2 options that I can think of:

You can reference the mount-point that GVFS has placed when you first accessed the share (which will be in ~/.gvfs/):


String server = "myserver";
String share = "shared";
File myfile = new File(System.getProperty("user.dir") + "/.gvfs/" + share + " on " + server + "/audit.txt");
myfile.createNewFile();

Obviously, this will mean that you need to authenticate with the server before the program will work (the same as Windows).

Alternatively, you could try using an SMB client library for Java to handle all the browsing and authentication for you. Something like JCIFS (http://jcifs.samba.org/) will probably be what you're looking for.

Also, it might be worth looking at the GEdit source code to see how it is interacting with Samba/GVFS (after all, thats partly what it is there for :)).

[drubin]

Hardware config:
windows XP home has shared folder with audit.txt file
ubuntu 8.10 laptop can see shared folder and audit.txt file.
I can use gedit from ubuntu to open and write audit entries into the audit.txt file then close it and audit trail entries are there. Great !

Is there any way using java/groovy client app on ubuntu, i can write a java program to write directly into audit.txt across the samba shared folder - or i am missing something :confused:

I have never done this from linux to windows, but from windows to linux works perfectly. Provided you have the correct permisions.

Also remember that as far as the Java is concerend this is just another file/folder the OS(driver being samba - driver might be the wrong term but close enough...) handles how the data is transfered/written.

[SeanHodges]

I have never done this from linux to windows, but from windows to linux works perfectly. Provided you have the correct permisions.

Also remember that as far as the Java is concerend this is just another file/folder the OS(driver being samba - driver might be the wrong term but close enough...) handles how the data is transfered/written.

Yeah, it will work fine accessing Linux shares from Windows, but Linux does not support UNC paths so unfortunately it doesn't work the other way around.

You cannot, for example do:


File myfile = new File("\\\\server\\share");

Because the path will not be valid on non-Windows systems. Neither can you do:


File myfile = new File("smb://server/share");

Because smb:/ depends on a Samba client, which lies in user space and is not understood by Java.

Any of my suggestions above should work around this problem, personally I would try using the ~/.gvfs/ path, unless you need something more sophisticated.

Out of interest, I took a look at Gedit's source code. It uses the GVFS library directly to retrieve files from a share. However, so far I have not been able to find java bindings for GVFS, so if my first suggestion doesn't cut it you will need to scout around for a decent CIFS/SMB library for Java.

[jnorthr]

Great ! Many thanx for that advice.I was hoping i could code something like:

File myfile = new File("smb://server/share");

but perhaps not. I do not understand UNC notations so am lost there.

There is a possibility i can re-design things to keep the audit.txt on my ubuntu system to capture audit messages and place a java client on the XP as you suggest to write 'backwards' across the samba connection.

Where is Bruce Eckel of 'Thinking in Java' when i need him ):P

[jnorthr]

ok, my terminal session fix on ubuntu 8.10 looked like this:
read this guide from rmh on another ubuntu forum:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=332575&highlight=smbfs


sudo apt-get install smbfs

when successful:

mkdir /mnt/web

sudo mount -t cifs -o rw,username=fred,workgroup=mshome //fredserver/web /mnt/web

df

notes: the mkdir creates a folder name that's visible to ubuntu file system called 'web' - yours can be any valid folder name but suggest you just go with this till you get the hang of it.

on my system i had to use sudo user to have enough permissions to mount;
your username= will need to change to your sudo user name; your workgroup name may be different if 1) your server is not a windows system or 2) you've changed the workgroup name on your windows box;
the 'df' command just confirms you have a connection:


jim@tiny:~/groovy$ cd /mnt
jim@tiny:/mnt$ ls -al
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-12-18 00:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4096 2008-11-28 07:56 ..
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-12-18 00:03 web
jim@tiny:/mnt$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 30233928 3598380 25099736 13% /
tmpfs 127324 0 127324 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 127324 344 126980 1% /var/run
varlock 127324 0 127324 0% /var/lock
udev 127324 2752 124572 3% /dev
tmpfs 127324 20 127304 1% /dev/shm
lrm 127324 2000 125324 2% /lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/volatile
/dev/sda2 20161204 1485900 17651164 8% /home
/dev/sda5 16126420 533280 14773828 4% /usr/local
/dev/sda6 9533248 8 9533240 1% /windows
/dev/sdb1 2004160 494880 1509280 25% /media/UBUNTU
//fredserver/web 149990396 48588684 101401712 33% /mnt/web



jim@tiny:/mnt$
jim@tiny:/mnt$ ls
web
jim@tiny:/mnt$ cd web
jim@tiny:/mnt/web$ ls -al
total 3922
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-12-18 00:03 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-12-18 00:17 ..
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 107247 2008-12-16 19:50 beret2.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 108325 2008-12-16 19:47 beret.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 128071 2008-12-16 19:59 bottle.jpg







Now a little groovy script:
jim@tiny:/mnt$ groovy -version
Groovy Version: 1.6-beta-2 JVM: 1.6.0_10

created a groovy script named 'smbio.groovy' with:

// this logic works well in getSysProperties and does not need flush() or close() methods to do it
def today = new Date()
def home="/mnt/web"
def thisName = home+'/fred3.txt'
def outFile = new File(thisName)
println "writing :"+outFile
outFile.delete()
outFile.write("title := Java System Properties"+"\n")
outFile.append("author := Fred"+"\n")
outFile.append("date := $today"+"\n")

then cd into your groovy folder, if installed

jim@tiny:~/groovy$ groovyc smbio.groovy
jim@tiny:~/groovy$ groovy smbio
writing :/mnt/web/fred3.txt

cd /mnt/web
ls -al
jim@tiny:/mnt/web$ ls -al
total 3922
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2008-12-18 08:43 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-12-18 00:17 ..
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 107247 2008-12-16 19:50 beret2.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 108325 2008-12-16 19:47 beret.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 128071 2008-12-16 19:59 bottle.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 104456 2008-12-16 19:56 boyincakeshop.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 119210 2008-12-16 19:34 bubbling.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 115757 2008-12-16 19:54 cake.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 117348 2008-12-16 20:00 dishes.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 104362 2008-12-14 13:47 eve2.jpg
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 319 2008-12-17 23:27 fred2.txt
-rwxrwSrwx 1 root root 84 2008-12-18 08:43 fred3.txt

then examine fred3.txt and bingo - writing across a samba share from ubuntu to windows xp home/sp2

jim@tiny:/mnt/web$ cat fred3.txt
title := Java System Properties
author := Fred
date := Thu Dec 18 09:43:47 GMT 2008

[SeanHodges]

Good stuff, well done.

Remember your mount will not be there after you reboot, so you either need to automate the mount task on system boot (probably using fstab), or call it at the beginning of your script:


Runtime rt = Runtime.getRuntime();
Process proc;
proc = rt.exec("gksudo umount /mnt/web");
proc = rt.exec("gksudo mount -t cifs -o rw,username=fred,workgroup=mshome //fredserver/web /mnt/web");

[grire974]

I realize that this thread is getting a bit old in the tooth; however I presume this might be useful for others than the original poster...

One way to solve this is to use the java.awt.Desktop class. It works on Mac OS X anyways. If you open up your browser & type in smb://yourServerName/folderName, low and behold the folder opens in finder. In OS X it works better in Safari, as it opens finder straight up; others such as fire fox may ask you what to open the link with (e.g. you have to choose finder from the list that pops up). Also if you call Desktop.browse & Safari is your default browser, safari doesn't even open, it just goes straight to finder. So if you can't count on safari being your default browser, you can always invoke it from the command line (using the java Process class). Opening safari from the command line is also a good option if you're on OS X 10.5, and/or only have java 1.5 (the Desktop class doesn't exist in java 1.5).

This solution worked for me, as all I wanted to do was to open up a folder in windows explorer/ OS X finder that was on our company active directory drive...

Anyways; a quick code sample to top it all off...


URI uri = new URI("smb://yourServerName/YourFolderName");
Desktop dsk = Desktop.getDesktop();
dsk.browse(uri);