UNC Paths

[Ed McNierney]

Dan -

Well, yes <g>.  You need to find and understand the corresponding user
security model for Apache, then.  Everything runs under a user security
context in Windows, so you need to know what user that is and what
rights that user has.

As Frank pointed out, however, there may be some issues with UNC support
in MapServer, so you should confirm that first.  I stopped using UNC
support several years ago because there were some serious limitations in
MapServer at the time.  In particular, MapServer would change to a
"current directory" (chdir()) and access files from there, and you can't
have a current directory on a UNC path.

And please always reply to the entire list, not just the responder -
thanks!

        - Ed

Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA  01863
ed at topozone.com
(978) 251-4242 

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Phillips [mailto:danp at americanclearinghouse.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 12:22 PM
To: Ed McNierney
Subject: RE: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] UNC Paths

Ed,

I'm using Apache, not IIS. Does this make a difference?

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed McNierney [mailto:ed at topozone.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 11:32 AM
To: Dan Phillips; MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: RE: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] UNC Paths


Dan -

You need to step very carefully if you want an IIS application to be
able to access network resources.  Remember that MapServer is running in
the security context of the user configured for that application under
IIS.  By default, this is the IUSR_<machinename> account.  By default,
this account is a LOCAL machine account and has no access to any network
resources, under any name.  This is a security feature to restrict Web
visitors from access to your network.

As a start, you should read and fully understand the document "How to
access network files from IIS applications" from Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;207671

        - Ed

Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA  01863
ed at topozone.com
(978) 251-4242 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Dan Phillips
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 11:04 AM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] UNC Paths

Hello,

I've just installed Mapserver on Windows XP and would like to use UNC in
my OGR Connection (e.g. "//HP_SERVER/RDRIVE/STREETS/STREETS.TAB") to
reference the map data rather than use mapped drives (e.g.
"R:/STREETS/STREETS.TAB").
I'm getting the error:

msDrawMap(): Image handling error. Failed to draw layer named 'Water'.
msOGRFileOpen(): OGR error. Open failed for OGR connection
`//HP_SERVER/RDRIVE/STREETS/STREETS.TAB'. File not found or unsupported
format.

What am I doing wrong?

Dan Phillips