How best to search an Xsan?

[brandon]

My Xsan exhibits a symptom that today might fall under the category of expected behavior. That symptom is that when I share the Xsan out to AFP clients, those clients have a tough time effectively searching for files on the Xsan.

Here's an example:

My environment -- Xsan 1.4.2, OS X 10.4.11.

At the root level of my Xsan, let's say I have a folder called "AFPShare" that I share out via AFP. And on that share, let's say I have the following path:

AFPShare / Subdirectory1 / Subdirectory2 / Subdirectory3 / Target.doc

Today, if I want to find Target.doc, here's how it goes:

At the AFP client, I Command-F in the Finder and search the location "AFPShare" for items whose name contains "target". I get an indefinitely cranking search window that yields no results.

No good.

So, I drill down and conduct an identical search of the location "Subdirectory1". I get an immediate response of no results.

No good.

So, I drill down and conduct an identical search of the location "Subdirectory2". Finally I find results that include Target.doc.

Now, I know that the above Xsan isn't Spotlight searchable. And I know about very simple third party search utilities like EasyFind. I have some personal success with that, but I'm hesitant to introduce it as a solution company-wide.

Enterprise Support says they're aware of this behavior and have no time frame for a solution.

What are you all doing meanwhile?

Thanks for any advice,

Brandon White

[matx]

find /Volumes/Xsan/ -name "*mov*" -print

Not a great solution for end users perhaps. But it works every time.

You could create a little GUI for it, if so inclined.

[brandon]

Excellent suggestion, but too power-user for my environment, I'm afraid -- we don't even allow access to Terminal.app by default. Anyone else?

[donald]

[brandon]

Hmm, also interesting, I'll have to stew on that one for a bit. Can't quite picture it initially, even though your description is pretty straightforward.

Anyone else have a recommendation short of a custom web app as described above, something you have in use today that either just works or adequately suffices?

[matx]

Searching with find and redirecting output to a file which is web accessible is something you could do, if you knew what they were looking for.

find /Volumes/XSAN/ -name "mp3" > "/Library/WebServer/Documents/mp3.txt"

Or you could dump the entire directory listing down to a file...

ls -R

but that would be crazy

[brandon]

Right -- I have no way of predicting what the end users will search for next, and dumping the entire directory list to a file isn't feasible, either.

Maybe I just have to advise the end users to keep their searches narrow, and to keep their data well organized.

At least until Xsan 2.0 delivers Spotlight integration.

[donald]

[brett]

@Brandon,

are you disclosing features for an Apple product that has yet to be released sir? I think that is a no-no unless you are just speculating on the feature.

[brandon]

No worries, I'm not breaking any NDAs, I'm just thinking wishfully (I'm only a customer these days, not affiliated with any service provider or Apple, and not a developer).

AppleInsider did fan the speculation for Spotlight integration a bit, though, in June of last year, easily Googled.

At any rate, using a web browser to scan a miles-long directory listing just doesn't feel to me like a very elegant user experience.

I'd be more inclined to place EasyFind in everyone's Dock instead.

No decisions made yet, though, still open to suggestion.

[fritz.]

heh

[fritz.]

oddly enough I've had spotlight able to search Xsan volumes intermittently in versions previous to Xsan 2. I've always dismissed it as a "happy accident" and now at least I have a bargaining chip to tempt clients to upgrade.