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I tried to find a similar topic, but failed to do so. So I am asking the question here.

At our company I am running a pilot to get Ubuntu on our machines, as it would solve a lot of our problems.

However, I encountered what would be a major deal breaker for us.

We use an in-house developed backoffice / ERP system and work a lot with picture files which then are printed on a variety of products. The backoffice is web-based and accessed through Mozilla Firefox.

We sometimes have to check those picture files and there is a button in the backoffice that allows us to view the file with a link like: ///diskstation/production/pictures/filename.png

On Windows the file opens without problems, but the link does not work in Ubuntu (Firefox). If you click on it you get an error message saying that no such file exists.

If I navigate to the path manually, I can open the file on Ubuntu too.

It looks to me like the link "formula" to the local file is Windows-specific.

Is there a way we could link to the file so that it is universally accessible?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Rene Raggl
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1 Answers1

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It is not clear which is the method you are using to access the remote shares --- but yes, the path to a remote share is different in Linux and in Windows. The paths specification is different, really.

If you can navigate to your file, you can see what the path (URL) is. If you are accessing the file with your browser, the one that (should) work with a browser is available in the properties dialog of the file manager (right click on the object):

property window

and it works for me:

samba share in firefox

The complete path to my file would be smb://pascua/ftp/red/vnc/tightvnc-1.2.9-setup.exe and if it where an image, feeding it to the browser will show it.

Additionally, the file from a remote server is visible somewhere in your directory hierarchy, and accessible as a normal file. To know how the file is known in the file system (as if it where a local file), drag the file icon in a terminal emulator window (here I typed ls -l before):

local path to a remote file

In this case the path is strange because the file is mounted by the gvfs backend (it's a user mount), in the case of system-mounted shares it should be easier to parse.

Rmano
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  • Hmmm.... yep, ok. Why the downvote? Just curious. – Rmano Jul 01 '15 at 15:58
  • Ehm, I did not downvote this...? Your answer actually makes a lot of sense and I believe it is going in the right direction.

    However, it still does not work... Firefox says that the protocol is not recognized and that I should install an extension.

    The share is a Synology Enterprise class NAS that has controlled access, you have to login with a username and password. The share is mounted using afp:

    The folder that I need to access contains tens of thousands of pictures in .png format. Each picture is named after the order it belongs to.

     – Rene Raggl Jul 02 '15 at 08:51
  • afp like in Apple File Protocol? Hmmm, I fear this is proprietary --- no idea how can you manage it. – Rmano Jul 02 '15 at 09:57
  • Yes, I don't know why the Synologic is mounted this way. Do you think the way the share is done via afp: or smb: does affect whether a file can be opened or not? – Rene Raggl Jul 10 '15 at 13:25
  • We have been looking at this internally and still could not find a direct solution. So your help would be greatly appreciated! – Rene Raggl Jul 16 '15 at 09:32
  • Oh, and mounting it in smb:// does not solve the problem. – Rene Raggl Jul 16 '15 at 10:03
  • Probably you need to change the way the links are presented in your browser --- unfortunately, I am not able to help without a deep understanding of your system. You're better off looking for professional help locally --- sorry. – Rmano Jul 16 '15 at 10:11
  • Rmano, we reached the same conclusion, it's not possible with the linking as is done today, our IT will have to change the format. Especially considering that in the mid-term the idea is to also bring chromebooks and -boxes into our organization, which would not be able to mount the network share anyway.

    But thanks for your effort, it's much appreciated!

     – Rene Raggl Jul 17 '15 at 20:35