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    You can only select local files [SOLVED]

    Howdy,

    Thought I'd give Kubuntu another try now that 11.10 is out of beta, hoping that some of the problems I saw earlier would have been solved, but no.

    Apart from some annoyances and minor things that don't really give the impression of a stable system, this one is effectively a party killer and a reason for tossing the system out again - which is a shame as it does have some good stuff going for it too.

    Problem: Various applications are unable to access files on SAMBA network shares properly, always resulting in the error message "You can only select local files"

    I basically run into this when trying to save files from Firefox to a directory on my NAS, but I'm sure I've seen the error pop up in other applications too (gwenview after chanching an image file and trying to save the results?). Anyway, let's stick with Firefox for now.

    System: Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Li-1718 (T2350, 1.5 GB RAM) - some of the desktop effects disabled for speed.

    11.10 (final) 32-bit Desktop (MD5 checked) installed fine from Live CD image on USB-stick.
    Firefox installed through MSC with the KDE integration patches etc

    NAS: "Slug" (Linksys NSLU2 with external USB HDD running factory installed OS (no alternative firmware).

    SAMBA shares on the Slug have always been accessible from any OS I threw at it, various Windoze, Ubuntu 9, 10 and various other distros (lightweights basically). Only Kubuntu (KDE?) seems to have a problem.

    To start with a positive angle: The way KDE integrates the access to the shares, making all shares/directories added to My Places in Dolphin visible to the applications is examplary - on Ubuntu I ended up having to create some symlink to a hidden file in the home directory after every install and clumsily click my way through home and the symlink to access the shares. But at least there I could actually use the files or save new files to the shares (from within applications).

    Searching the web I find plenty of bug reports, some quite old, that seem to address the same issue, but no real solutions. Did I not find the correct discussions?:
    http://web.archiveorange.com/archive...GH6RTz3nRqHSAz
    https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=626180
    http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/751125
    http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-b.../msg03317.html

    Obviously an often encountered problem, but I seem to be too thick to easily find a documented fix

    Anyone knows any solution or workaround?

    To be (overly) clear: There is no problem browsing the shares and copying files forth and back with Dolphin, just with opening/writing files from within applications such as Firefox.

    I'd be happy even with an Ubuntu-style setup reaching the shares by a detour through some symlink, but apparently Dolphin doesn't create the same .whatever with network addresses when the shares are accessed so I wouldn't know where to look for those.

    Thanks for any pointers

    #2
    Re: You can only select local files

    the shares have to be mounted. gnome will automount just about anything it sees. kde does not do this, the ezest way is prolly to use SMB4k to do it for you, or set up your /etc/fstab to mount the files as cifs or smbfs

    this is not a bug but an intended feature. automounting and autorunning of things is a security issue. kde does not automout anything (unless you tell it to , might want to check system settings-> removeable devices. you might be able to have it mount the smb shares from there since it shows them in places already)
    Mark Your Solved Issues [SOLVED]
    (top of thread: thread tools)

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      #3
      [SOLVED]

      Hi Sith,

      Many thanks for your answer - I never realized the shares didn't get mounted but are accessed through some other means - silly me

      I still think it's a bug though - not a feature

      If I can browse the network shares with dolphin, copy and delete files, open files with the likes of kate and save them again and than next run into trouble trying to do the same from other applications, I call it a bug, not a security feature.

      If this is the way usage of samba shares is "designed" to work for the ignorant user, the design team should rethink their perception of the capabilities of ignorant users :-X

      There are no obvious hooks to "start using a SAMBA share properly" or even just "Mount SAMBA share" to be found anywhere except for the obvious browsing the network with Dolphin and adding them to places. But that doesn't work. Or at least not without the problems mentioned.

      Instead, apparently by design, the ignorant user is expected to maybe:
      • open a terminal
      • sudo mkdir /media/somename
      • sudo smbmount //whatever
      • find out smbmount isn't installed
      • make sure an internet connection is open, which may not be the case, after all we want to connect to a LAN not WAN!
      • sudo apt-get install smbfs
      • try mounting the easy way:
      • sudo smbmount //server/share /media/somename -o rw
      • realize that (of course) the system can't find the server by its name and, not wanting to bother with other setup issues, resort to using the ip for now:
      • sudo smbmount //10.0.0.1/share /media/somename -o rw
      • rejoice in seeing the dir listing appear under /media/somename in Dolphin
      • curse the system again for not letting you actually use the files (opening a textfile results in an empty page in kate - even without warning/errors; trying to open from within kate at least produces an error message)
      • search the internet for more/other proper options
      • try some and fail because the ones found (dmask, fmask) are deprecated
      • RTFM man smbmount to find out about the new options and get totally bored and frustrated with technical issues about permissions on client and server that the ignorant user really doesn't want to know about, just wanting to read/write the files on the NAS just the way it always worked.
      • finding, well hidden in the 1000 words of text, a little note that if you do not want to mess with permissions you may want to try the option noperm
      • finally go back to the command prompt and type:
      • sudo smbmount //10.0.0.1/share /media/somename -o rw,noperm
      • ...
      • now rember to do stuff like this for every share on the network every time the system starts and/or spend another day cursing at finding out how to automate this at startup without trying to load things before the kernel is good and ready for it and without hickups when on a different LAN etc etc.

      Yai - those designers really must think highly of me and other ignorant users

      Hope it helps some others with the same problem

      Anyway - thanks again for pointing me in the right direction Sithlord - consider this [SOLVED]
      Cheers :P

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