Hi all, very new to unRAID, my apologies if this is a dumb question.

 

I want to rename some of the default shares.

 

I'm pretty OCD about organization of folder names where I can be, so my idea is to rename them to 

Application Data

Virtual Machines (Because I'm not sure why they're called domains?)

Removing ISOs and just having that as folder inside of another share.

System - just capitalizing the S, as I plan to make all my new shares with capital letters.

 

I do know they're case sensitive as well based on this.

 

My question would be if there's anything special I need to do in order to rename those, and after I rename them what other settings will this affect that I need to go in and change later?

I have VMs and Docker enabled but have not installed a container or any actual VMs yet.

Rename the shares from the GUI.

Go to the Shares page and click on the name of the share to change. Within the settings change the name as desired and click Apply. This will update the share name for unRAID itself.

If you have any containers or VMs defined (which you haven't) then a manual adjustment for each container/VM settings is required.

 

I think your OCD may cause you more trouble than it's worth.

 

For one thing, SMB is not case sensitive, but linux is.

For another, the default docker templates will not work and you will have to be careful to override them for each docker you install.

 

My suggestion would be to just get over it.

1 minute ago, trurl said:

My suggestion would be to just get over it.

 

I second that. Though it is easy to rename default shares, it is no longer a install and forget scene. You would need to keep track of your own customizations.

12 minutes ago, trurl said:

For another, the default docker templates will not work and you will have to be careful to override them for each docker you install.

 

My suggestion would be to just get over it.

 

Thanks for the insight, I really do appreciate it since I'm so new to unRAID right now.

 

In regards to your docker template comment, Is that just the "appdata" share? That's the one that I've been thinking of just leaving alone, and possibly system. 

 

I really do want to rename "domains" (why is it called that, am I missing something?) and put ISOs inside of another share and just update the VM Manager settings to point to those new shares.

 

EDIT: I'm dumb and was thinking of Windows server domains this entire time, but I would still like to rename that share.

 

Edited January 9, 20188 yr by CorneliousJD

"domains" is a remnant of the past. Initially VMs were done using XEN before moving to KVM. Even some parts of the source code is still using "domain" which eventually needs to be cleaned up 

 

You can store ISO files anywhere you like, just make sure that under VM settings the correct reference to the folder is set.

 

Thanks for the info! 

 

By the sound of it, the appdata share is really the only one that shouldn't be changed for ease of use.

 

If I change System I just need to go point Docker and VM Manager to the new .img files, and change VM manager to use a different VM storage location.

 

Is there any other unforeseen consequences to changing the domains and system share names that I'm not thinking of?

 

Thanks again everyone!

I would recommend retraining yourself NOT to use spaces where possible, it can make things interesting in the least possible good sense of the word interesting.

 

Instead, try using an underscore. Virtual_Machines for example.

16 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

I would recommend retraining yourself NOT to use spaces where possible

 

In principle it is okay to use spaces, great care has been taken to support that, but if not covered (=bug) there might be a "surprise". If you don't like suprises the safer way is to use underscores or dashes instead.

I long ago decided that using all lowercase with a dash or underscore if absolutely necessary was the easiest way to avoid problems with Linux...

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

1 hour ago, bonienl said:

 

In principle it is okay to use spaces, great care has been taken to support that, but if not covered (=bug) there might be a "surprise". If you don't like suprises the safer way is to use underscores or dashes instead.

I wasn''t speaking specifically to any OS, unraid or otherwise. Instead, I'm speaking to the way the computer industry in general has a difficult time with spaces. Like you said, most of the time it works, and it's getting better, but it can still be problematic in certain circumstances, and it's easier to train your brain to think differently about spaces than it is to deal with unexpected consequences if something doesn't work. In the back of my mind there is always a question if there are spaces in a folder or filename whether or not a program that needs to deal with it is bug free, if no spaces, it's one less thing to worry about.

 

It's just a general mindset thing.

Totally agree! You don't want to know how many updates were done to support 'space' in unRAID. We used the line from Star Trek "Space, the final frontier" as it kept coming back

 

3 hours ago, jonathanm said:

I would recommend retraining yourself NOT to use spaces where possible, it can make things interesting in the least possible good sense of the word interesting.

 

Instead, try using an underscore. Virtual_Machines for example.

A significant percent of this worlds file naming problems comes from paths and file names with space in them.

 

Too much tools that doesn't use "" around paths and file names or inserts \ before the spaces. And some commands can become directly aggressive when a path with a space gets splitted to into two text strings where the second text string suddenly becomes the target of something not intended.

43 minutes ago, bonienl said:

Totally agree! You don't want to know how many updates were done to support 'space' in unRAID. We used the line from Star Trek "Space, the final frontier" as it kept coming back

 

There are still lots of IDE that doesn't escape the paths when calling command-line build tools.

 

Same with front-end tools that allows people to specify backup sources/targets/filters and as backed uses rsync etc.

 

So unRAID itself may be magically perfect, but there are so many other tools who aren't. And this doesn't just affect unRAID itself - it also affects tools on the client computers who mounts the file systems. There must be a million programs out there that doesn't handle spaces properly.

On 1/9/2018 at 9:21 AM, CHBMB said:

I long ago decided that using all lowercase with a dash or underscore if absolutely necessary was the easiest way to avoid problems with Linux...

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk
 

So, you mean using lowercase and - or _ in all filenames data filenames - movies, music, photos, PDF, etc?

4 minutes ago, DoItMyselfToo said:

So, you mean using lowercase and - or _ in all filenames data filenames - movies, music, photos, PDF, etc?

 

If you want to use spaces, it's best to use spaces only for last directory levels and for files but make sure you don't use spaces for the earlier part of the paths that you might want to use as shares, Docker mappings, backup paths etc.

 

But there still exists tools that are so stupid that you may need to skip spaces all together because the GUI part of the tool makes use of a command-line back-end but doesn't use break characters or quotation marks around the file names. And space is the parameter separator for command-line tools. So any time a command-line tool is given a directory name or file name containing spaces and the name isn't encapsulated in quotes "name with spaces" or uses break characters name\ with\ spaces then  the command line tool will split the name and treat as multiple arguments.

 

So it's all a question of what tools you will use, and if the tool developer has made a number of invalid assumptions about spaces in directory and file names.

All my folders only ever use lowercase and absolutely no spaces.

Filenames I'm a bit more relaxed about, if I know I'll only ever be using them in a desktop environment then I don't mind spaces or capitals quite so much.

If it's a file that I'm going to be using from the terminal then I avoid spaces and capitals completely.

9 minutes ago, pwm said:

 

If you want to use spaces, it's best to use spaces only for last directory levels and for files but make sure you don't use spaces for the earlier part of the paths that you might want to use as shares, Docker mappings, backup paths etc.

 

But there still exists tools that are so stupid that you may need to skip spaces all together because the GUI part of the tool makes use of a command-line back-end but doesn't use break characters or quotation marks around the file names. And space is the parameter separator for command-line tools. So any time a command-line tool is given a directory name or file name containing spaces and the name isn't encapsulated in quotes "name with spaces" or uses break characters name\ with\ spaces then  the command line tool will split the name and treat as multiple arguments.

 

So it's all a question of what tools you will use, and if the tool developer has made a number of invalid assumptions about spaces in directory and file names.

Though I just set up my unRAID server, I haven't transferred files to my array yet when I came across this.  I've been using Mac's for the past 12 years.  I used Windows XP before that.

 

I have all kinds of files to transfer to my unRAID server, many of them with long filenames and spaces.  Mostly this is to provide a tagging scheme in the filename to avoid using some kind of system tags that can be easily lost.

 

Here is a similar example of something I might use:

 

2016.08.10 - Receipt - Walmart - Debit - Groceries - Household

 

Sounds like I might run into problems.

Edited June 16, 20188 yr by DoItMyselfToo

11 minutes ago, CHBMB said:

All my folders only ever use lowercase and absolutely no spaces.

Filenames I'm a bit more relaxed about, if I know I'll only ever be using them in a desktop environment then I don't mind spaces or capitals quite so much.

If it's a file that I'm going to be using from the terminal then I avoid spaces and capitals completely.

So, keeping folders lowercase with no spaces insures you avoid directory problems, especially using Terminal?  That makes sense.

 

As for files, I have a lot of them with long file names as a tagging convention.  I found this helpful to avoid using a tagging scheme on a platform, such as provided in OS X, or in a standalone program that goes out of development.  Am I going to have to rename all my files? 

Edited June 16, 20188 yr by DoItMyselfToo

No, you won't, personally I just avoid spaces as it makes my life easier in the terminal, not because you can't, just because I'm lazy......

1 minute ago, CHBMB said:

No, you won't, personally I just avoid spaces as it makes my life easier in the terminal, not because you can't, just because I'm lazy......

Relax...deep cleansing breaths...relax.  Ok.  Lol.

21 minutes ago, DoItMyselfToo said:

Though I just set up my unRAID server, I haven't transferred files to my array yet when I came across this.  I've been using Mac's for the past 12 years.  I used Windows XP before that.

 

I have all kinds of files to transfer to my unRAID server, many of them with long filenames and spaces.  Mostly this is to provide a tagging scheme in the filename to avoid using some kind of system tags that can be easily lost.

 

Here is a similar example of something I might use:

 

2016.08.10 - Receipt - Walmart - Debit - Groceries - Household

 

Sounds like I might run into problems.

 

No. unRAID has no issues with spaces. Linux has no issues with spaces. Windows has no issues with spaces.

 

It's specific tools that may be stupid. And almost always tools designed as a GUI front-end and one or more command-line back-ends.

 

If you use unRAID just as a file server, then it will present the directories and files to your computer without any issues. And your Windows/Mac/Linux programs on your workstation will be able to see and use the files.

 

It's if you run some automated tool that might convert audio or video between different formats or if you use an integrated development environment (IDE) for coding software that you just might see issues with spaces. But only if the developer of the tools have been fools and made the assumption that files and/or directories doesn't contain spaces. Most such fool have by now learned the hard way that they have been fools and corrected their tools. But there still exists tools that haven't been fixed.

 

But if you haven't seen any tool with issues, then the probability is quite good that you can continue with spaces without ever seeing such broken tool.

2 minutes ago, pwm said:

 

No. unRAID has no issues with spaces. Linux has no issues with spaces. Windows has no issues with spaces.

 

It's specific tools that may be stupid. And almost always tools designed as a GUI front-end and one or more command-line back-ends.

 

If you use unRAID just as a file server, then it will present the directories and files to your computer without any issues. And your Windows/Mac/Linux programs on your workstation will be able to see and use the files.

 

It's if you run some automated tool that might convert audio or video between different formats or if you use an integrated development environment (IDE) for coding software that you just might see issues with spaces. But only if the developer of the tools have been fools and made the assumption that files and/or directories doesn't contain spaces. Most such fool have by now learned the hard way that they have been fools and corrected their tools. But there still exists tools that haven't been fixed.

 

But if you haven't seen any tool with issues, then the probability is quite good that you can continue with spaces without ever seeing such broken tool.

Thanks for the feedback.  For my movies, I keep the filenames that are defaulted by the DVD, which usually are short filenames, all caps, and often with underscore instead spaces.  Though some have spaces.  This is the only place where I envision possibly using an automated tool to transcode.  Sounds like I should be okay.

16 minutes ago, DoItMyselfToo said:

Thanks for the feedback.  For my movies, I keep the filenames that are defaulted by the DVD, which usually are short filenames, all caps, and often with underscore instead spaces.  Though some have spaces.  This is the only place where I envision possibly using an automated tool to transcode.  Sounds like I should be okay.

 

I always keep the file names as they are on the DVD/BD images.

 

But I normally create directories looking like:

Beauty and the Beast (1991) [Skönheten och odjuret] [BD-,SWE]
Big Boss, The (1971) [BD,BOX,Import]
Churchill (2017) [BD--]
Star Wars - Episode VIII - The Last Jedi [BD,2Disc]
Thor - Ragnarok (2017) [BD]

BD or DVD is obviously the format.

Two dashes after the format means I haven't seen the rip.

One dash means I have seen the rip but not the extra material.

SWE if it has optional swedish dubbing (so suitable for children)

Similar for music:

Depeche Mode - 2011 Remixes 2- 81–11 [XLCDMUTE18] (Disc 1) (9C12260D) [WAV]

Last part is format.

Before that the disk id - which is the checksum of the track information.

Before that optional disk number.

Before that optional catalog code.

 

So adding additional metadata for directories can be quite practical.