Setting up a new UNRAID box. Just upgraded it to v7.1.3 from v7.0.1 (and previously v6.x.x)

The plan is to retire an old Windows machine I use with SMB shares. A media server with music and video and many hard disks. Multiple SMB shares.

I had setup User Shares on Unraid as +Audio, +Work, etc as I wanted to mimic the old drives. Adding that special character so I can tell it apart from system folders.

Project then parked for months. Power up again today, upgrade to v7.1.2.

Today after the upgrade to v7.1.3 I am now getting warnings "Share name contains invalid characters for ZFS use"

• Why would I get warnings about ZFS when I don't use ZFS?

• Why are non-alphanumeric characters being blocked? I tried to fix it, but it does not let me start with +, !, or similar characters.

• How would I set the SMB share name to ones I am used to that use characters like "!!" ?

I am still in early setup stages so nothing is on here yet. The plan is to bring one disk at a time from the old PC, copy data in, add the same SMB shares as I had before.

Am used to using anything as SMB share names in Windows, so this is a little confusing getting limitations. If it is just a limitation I need to put up with, then fine. I just assumed I must be missing something obvious. 😁 I'd call my Windows knowledge Advance, but Linux still Noob.

Edited: I realise I'm probably about to answer most of my questions the more I dig. Surprised how different sharing and SMB are in Unraid compared to Windows. Now sharing of sub-folders is going to make me have to redesign how my system works. I currently have a MUSIC folder with a sub-share of NEW-CDs. Both of these with their own SMB shares. The NEW-CDs folder had different rights allowing me to drop things into it without give full write access to the whole music folder. If shares can only be done from the top level this is causing a lot of re-thinking.🤔

Edited June 9, 20251 yr by Batter Pudding

15 hours ago, Batter Pudding said:

No sharing of sub-folders is going to make me have to redesign how my system works. I currently have a MUSIC folder with a sub-share of NEW-CDs. Both of these with their own SMB shares.

Have a look at this:

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/137806-creat-a-user-share-containing-a-portion-of-another-user-share/#comment-1251067

But realize that there are restrictions and limitations as discussed here:

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/190727-creating-shares-within-existing-shares-directory-structures-in-the-array-subtle-issue/

Thanks @Frank1940 I will look into that. I've also been trying to redesign things in my head. There is a typo in my post as "No sharing" should say "Now Sharing" as I realise I need to change things.

I am just really surprised as to how limited things are. I was expecting networking to be a step up from Windows, but if everything is running on a "Lowest common denominator" of ZFS I find it all a little bizarre. You know how security mad I am with SMB and I have a nice complex setup on the Windows box that lets different users at different parts of the file tree in different ways. Partly a protection against my own accidental deletes, and also a protection again potential encryption viruses.

I'll look at your hard link idea, but I will also investigate ACL a little more.

Though my initial question stands - why am I limited to how I name my shares? Why can't I use !Audio! as a share name when I don't use ZFS? I don't follow the logic of that one. Why can't I name a file folder and share differently? This is such a basic thing in Windows application of SMB.

4 hours ago, Batter Pudding said:

Though my initial question stands - why am I limited to how I name my shares? Why can't I use !Audio! as a share name when I don't use ZFS? I don't follow the logic of that one. Why can't I name a file folder and share differently? This is such a basic thing in Windows application of SMB.

I don't have any good answers for you. (You did give me many insights into the workings of Windows SMB back in in 2021 when we worked together preparing a 'white paper' on using SMB , Unraid Samba and Windows OS in a secured environment.) I am going to ping @JorgeB as he is much more knowledgeable about the inter workings of ZFS. (What I feel is happening is the ZFS is being introduced into Unraid in small steps but that is conjecture on my part.)

I'm mainly trying to check I am not missing anything. The more I read, the more I realise things are dumbed down \ lowest common denominator on UNRAID. So I just gotta redesign my current system as I still want to bail from that old Windows "Server".

Part of this is also my OCD as I like having folders grouped by ! and + symbols. Which the ZFS rules are therefore banning. Kinda awkward when I had already setup test folders as "+audio" and "+video" which now are being forced to be renamed due to ZFS's limitations.

This made sense to me as I could have My Folders separated from the System folders. Unraid wants me to alpha sort everything into a mush, though I have worked out that ZFS seems happy to let me use a dash or underscore. I think my brain could get round that.

I also need to fully understand the network write access and be in full control of it. If the server is on my network, it has to be secure by default.

9 minutes ago, Batter Pudding said:

he more I read, the more I realise things are dumbed down \ lowest common denominator on UNRAID. So I just gotta redesign my current system as I still want to bail from that old Windows "Server".

No argument on my part. The problem has been that Unraid started out with full 'Public' access being the default. (To be fair, in those days that was pretty much everyone's approach on the home NAS level.) It was simple to use. After starting your Unraid server and setting up a 'Share' on it, you clicked on the Windows File Manager, enter the server name (or IP address) and you were connected to the share.

Believe it or not, there are still people who want that simplicity today. Every time, MS closes a potential security hole, there are folks over on this forum wanting to know how to bypass it! They resist the idea that they could avoid all of this by simply setting up a Share Access user on Unraid and adding a Windows Credential for their Unraid server and Share Access user.

From my standpoint, I see the beauty and elegance of the Windows permissions setup but I am perplexed at its complexity. I feel that if you are not trained and not dealing with it on a daily basis, you can quickly become lost in setting things up to work properly. (I still have to go back to your notes from 2021 when dealing with peer-to-peer Windows file sharing issues!)

Since Unraid also supports zfs it must limit the share names to be compatible with it, say a user starts only with just an xfs array, and since it's not zfs, Unraid would not enforce that zfs invalid characters, in the future the user adds a zfs pool, and now that share would not work with, and the user would have no idea why, so LT decided to just don't allow it, and IMHO it's the best way.

@JorgeB I'm not here to argue pros and cons of something. Just understand the limitations I need to work within on UNRAID. Coming from a security background it is just a bit of a head adjustment. Especially as I am weird 🤪 with my !!file names!! - always have been. Unless I missed it in the docs, it could be worth noting this limitation in the manual.

I assume only the top\root level is restricted to the simplified character set? I have subfolders that I want to copy in with all kinds of weird and wild Unicode characters including Japanese. As long as these will still work as subfolders on XFS I am not going to worry.

It does scupper my original plan where I was going to attempt to do an invisible swap which would have maintained my odd SMS share names. A good excuse to redesign.

@Frank1940 Yeah - I am aware that people like to have a "no security" \ "no password" setup. Something that has always horrified me about any system when that appears in conversation. Maybe I am just too paranoid.

25 minutes ago, Batter Pudding said:

I assume only the top\root level is restricted to the simplified character set?

Yep

If you are concerned about security, look at this parameter in the Samba settings:

https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/current/man-html/smb.conf.5.html#MAPTOGUEST

Then run

testparm

On your Unraid server.

I have changed this setting on both my servers to 'Never' several weeks ago and haven't had any problems.

Edited June 9, 20251 yr by Frank1940

@JorgeB Thanks for confirming.

@Frank1940 That's useful. I've hacked around with smb.conf before and good to get a reminder of where it is. How do I make things "stick" between reboots\OS Upgrades? Do I need to find the copy of this on the USB stick?

17 minutes ago, Batter Pudding said:

How do I make things "stick" between reboots\OS Upgrades? Do I need to find the copy of this on the USB stick

Manually editing the smb.conf file is not a satisfactory answer as it gets regenerated any time you make a change to share settings. You can add entries to SMB Extras under Settings->SMB and these will be persisted automatically by Unraid.

You can edit the smb-extra.conf file in the /config directory/folder on the Flash Drive. Be aware that this file uses Linux line endings so you have to use an editor that is aware how to handle this formatting requirement. (I use EditPad Lite but I think the latest version of Windows Notepad is now format aware. Using the GUI as @itimpi suggested is probably the easiest way.

@itimpi Got it. That makes sense.

@Frank1940 If I edit a linux file like that I'd stay with command line and knock rust off my ability with vi. Or which ever simple text editor is in play here.

My basic *nix abilities can be tracked back to the late 1980s \early 90s... (SunOS 3\4) Even ran Mandrake linux at one time. The only problem I get with Linux is once I get something setup and running, I then leave it like that for years and years and forget the basics of how to change things next time I need to dive in. 😁 Solid reliability catches out my memory. I take more notes now.

One of the things that attracted me to Unraid was working with a mixed set of hard disk sizes, and the simplified front end. So I try and work within the rules where possible.