Run QuickBooks on Linux server?

[James McDonald]

Bill Campbell wrote:

>On Mon, Oct 20, 2003, Michael Hipp wrote:
>  
>
>>Bill Campbell wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Has anybody successfully run QuickBooks Professional where the QB data is
>>>on a Linux server with the Windows boxen accessing it via Samba?  I have
>>>found some articles via google search that say it may be possible by
>>>turning on strict locking in Samba, but there still seem to be problems.
>>>
>>>Disclaimer:  I have very limited experience with QB, preferring to use real
>>>accounting software (e.g. multi-user on a stable platform where the authors
>>>understand GAAP).
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>My experiences are somewhat dated but perhaps relevant. About 20 months 
>>(?) ago I attempted converting the file server of a small-mid-sized 
>>manufacturing company near here to a COL 3.1.1 server using Samba. Their 
>>main app is QB and they use it heavier than anyone I know. Not long 
>>after the conversion they began to get frequent corruption of the QB 
>>database. And once we lost 2 days worth of entries due to an 
>>unrecoverable data file and faulty backup and had to revert to an older 
>>backup.
>>    
>>
>....
>  
>
>>Note that lots of other companies I support use QB on RH servers - but 
>>not nearly as heavily - have no problems whatsoever. It's a size/volume 
>>problem AFAICT and probably wouldn't be easy to reproduce. I'd sure like 
>>to hear the problem has been solved but I'd proceed cautiously.
>>    
>>
>
>Resurrecting an old thread, we've had a customer running samba-2.2.8a on a
>SuSE 8.2 Professional system for almost six months now.  They're having
>periodic problems where the permissions of the image file get changed so
>that new users can't start QB, and fairly frequent locking problems.  The
>permissions problems are fairly easy to fix (and I just changed ``create
>mask = 0777'' which will hopefully keep QB happy.
>
>The locking problem is more difficult as the only way to fix that I've
>found is to restart the samba server.  We're running ``oplocks = No'' and
>``strict locking = Yes'' on the QB directory as was recommended on one of
>these threads.  The locking problems may be caused by having five users, a
>five user limit on QB, and the normal flakiness of Windows connections.
>
>Any suggestions on the locking issues?
>
>Would going to samba3 help?
>  
>
On our windows servers we have had to turn opportunistic locking off to 
stop similar problems.