Now I'm really confused.
I got all perms and ownership set for my Samba directory. I had a bunch of small test files on the samba share. I started a backup and saw there's only 4GB of space, not 111GB or so that's really there. I remember this from last install but no recollection how I fixed it. So I stop the backup and decide to reboot the Linux server.
Now I see 9 GB available, better but still not right... wait...NOW I see all my previously missing backup files! Where were they all this time? The ownership has changed to the owner I previously used for samba directory on the old install. I forgot that this user was what I used, and set up the new samba install with another user. All my test files are gone however, which I created with the new user account. Where did they go? Why couldn't root see these files before? Because they were created using Samba?
The only thing I changed other than ownership was I had since added all Linux users as samba users (in Webmin|Servers|Samba), which included the user I had used for samba with the old Mandrake 9.2 install. But I did this hours ago, and these files didn't appear until I rebooted. This is really confusing. Thanks for listening...
Can someone explain what occurred here?
Lee; I've seen this same situation a few times myself lately, and it's not as bad or weird as it seems. Your large partitions or drives are not being mounted properly at boot time.
The basic partitions are being mounted without a problem, but when the system tries to mount the 111GB partition or drive, it stops, and mounts it as a folder instead of a mount-point for the 111GB drive.
I suspect that this is due to the time required to mount a drive of that size and that insufficient time was allowed by the kernel to mount it.
Once it fails to mount, the mount-point (your Samba Directory), becomes a standard folder and as such it now resides on the "/" partition. As a folder on "/" it can only show you the remaining space on "/" or on whichever partition did actually mount.
If you open a shell as root-user, you can manually mount the drive or partition, but be aware that any files/folders which were placed in the Samba directory when the drive was NOT mounted, will be unseen.
If there is any data in the Samba folder (if the drive didn't mount, it's a folder and not a mount-point), you need to move that data out of that folder before mounting the partition or drive.
To clarify;
1) If you have a mount-point defined as "/Samba" which is actually a 111GB drive or folder (I'll call it a folder for simplicity's sake), and the drive isn't mounted at boot time, Linux treats it as just another folder which is a sub-folder of the "/" partition.
2) If you move any files into the "Samba" folder when it's not mounted, those files are actually taking up space in the root partition, where the "Samba" folder (NOT the Samba mount-point) resides.
3) If you mount the Samba drive while there is any data in the Samba folder, that data is not seen or shown (It still exists, but can't be seen), until you un-mount the Samba drive.
4) Since mount-points are created as folders and subsequently those folders become the link to the actual partition, they remain as folders when a drive or partition is un-mounted, so that they can be available when you re-mount the partition.
5) Since most people don't visually inspect each partition each time they reboot a system, they might not be aware that the drive (in your case a 111GB partition or separate drive) didn't get mounted at boot time.
6) Since it obviously didn't get mounted, what you're really looking at is a folder which is a sub-directory of the "/" partition, and the size that you're seeing is actually the remaining free-space on that "/" partition.
7) The simplest way to fix this, is to move any files which you may have copied into the Samba folder (while it was un-mounted) to another folder, then to mount the Samba partition manually (in a root shell, type 'mount /Samba" without the quotes, and watch the hard drive light on your computer case. It will light up for a few seconds while the drive is being mounted.
8) Re-Check the size of the Samba folder. It should be the size you expect it to be now, since it is now a mount-point and NOT just a folder anymore. Now move any files which you moved a few minutes ago back into the Samba partition and you should be all set.
9) I've tried adding a mount command to the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file to ensure that my large partitions get mounted at boot-time, but I've found that this doesn't always seem to work. So far it doesn't seem reliable, and even though the /etc/fstab file has the mount-point clearly and properly defined, this doesn't seem to do the trick. So until someone comes up with a reliable work-around, this seems to be the only way to solve the problem.
HTH's
-- Mr. Geek Registered Linux User #190712
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