CDServer-HOWTO
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4. More Information

Be sure to check the suggested reading in Section 1.3.

4.1. Frequently Asked Questions

I finally had to create this section - Frequently Asked Questions. Although, I sometimes think it should be called Frequently Answered Questions (at least I try to answer them all).

Q: Can I copy CD contents to a directory and share it with SAMBA?
Q: Do any scripts or programs exist that automate this process?
Q: Do any web interfaces exist that automate this process?
Q: Can copy-protected CD's (e.g. laserlok) be shared in this way?

Q: Can I copy CD contents to a directory and share it with SAMBA?

A: In a word - Yes.

There is nothing to keep you from doing that. However I'm not sure which arguments you would have to use with tar and which options to include in the SAMBA stanzas. Also, there could be problems with file name mangling (case sensitivity, spaces in file names), file attributes (read-only), etc. If anyone is doing this successfully, please send me examples of the commands you used for copying the contents of the CD, and your SAMBA stanzas for the shares.
Here's some commands you can use to copy the contents:
bash# cd /home bash# mkdir image bash# cd image bash# mkdir mndrk81 bash# mount /mnt/cdrom bash# cd /mnt/cdrom bash# tar cvf - . | (cd /home/image/mndrk81; tar xvf -)
Thanks to Giblhauser Carl Michael for this info

Q: Do any scripts or programs exist that automate this process?

A: Yes:

Bradley Wendelboe and James Mumm wrote a shell script called CDTower - see Section 4.2.2 to download it.
I have no independent test results of this script - use at your own risk.

Q: Do any web interfaces exist that automate this process?

A: Not yet. However there is much interest in this.

Tony Melia [Tony.Melia (at) downsmicro.com.au] has announced that he is 60% complete with a web interface, i.e. sucking CD's in, creating extra /dev/loop entries and seeing what space the CD's are taking up.
I am planning on writing a module for Webmin to automate this process. That project is currently hosted on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencdserver

Q: Can copy-protected CD's (e.g. laserlok) be shared in this way?

A: To the best of my knowledge, No.

Others have reported problems to me trying to share ISO images made from copy-protected CD's. It seems that even when using the "unhide" option with mount that files will remain hidden.

4.2. Other Instructions Available on the Web

This section is devoted to instructional materials that others have written or have sent to me.

4.2.1. Saving a CD-ROM to a File and Mounting it

Richard Black (Compaq) has some good pages about Saving CD-ROM's to files and mounting them in Red Hat Linux.

Saving a CD-ROM to a File and Mounting it
Linux Loop Devices - This page also includes the script below for creating many loop device nodes at once in /dev.

Device nodes are required to access the loop devices. You already have loop0 - loop7. You can run the following loop to create the rest of the nodes (loop8 - loop255). You can type all of the following lines of code on one single line if you leave off the trailing "\" characters. C=8; echo; echo "Creating loop device nodes."; \ while [ $C -lt 256 ]; do mknod /dev/loop$C b 7 $C; \ echo -n .; C=`expr $C + 1`; done; echo; Note: the quoting around the expr section are called backtick's and they are located with the tilde character ("~") in the upper left hand corner of the keyboard. The character is not a single quote.

Thanks to Richard Black for permission to add this info and for linking back to this document.

4.2.2. CDTower v.06

A script to automate the creation of ISO images and share them via Samba

by Bradley Wendelboe [krakken (at) icehouse.2y.net] and James Mumm [dart (at) windeath.2y.net]

This software is covered under the GPL See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for details.

To view/download this script:: http://www.talcon.com/projects/CDServer-HOWTO/scripts/cdtower_v0.06.sh.txt

Caution: I have no independent test results of this script - use at your own risk.

Thanks to Bradley Wendelboe for forwarding this script to me.

4.3. Under Future Consideration

These are things I'm currently looking into, trying to figure out, or planning to get done.

Make more scripts available that others have sent to me, either within this howto, or by hosting them and linking to them from this document.
Sharing CD's to Apple and Netware clients (Appletalk and IPX).
Compressed ISO Images.
Changing CD Shares on the fly (hopefully transparent to users).
Adding a module to Webmin to automate the CDServer process.
Distribution specific instructions.
I have a volunteer for a German translation, hopefully it will be done soon.

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