Windows compatible filenames

Note

This feature was introduced in F7cloud 31.

By default F7cloud supports all filenames which are valid on the underlying server. As F7cloud runs only on POSIX compatible operating systems (Linux), this means that F7cloud supports also filenames not valid on Microsoft Windows systems.

If your users use Windows and use the F7cloud Desktop clients to synchronize their work to their computer they might encounter files created in the web interface, or on a Linux machine, which cannot be synchronized as the filename is not valid.

To solve this issue it is possible to enforce filenames only valid on Windows, this for example forbids characters like * from filenames or filenames like AUX.txt (on Windows AUX is a reserved name and cannot be used).

Note

Enabling this setting will not enforce case-insensitivity as modern Windows systems support case-sensitive filenames.

Enabling Windows compatible filenames

This feature can be enabled either by using the web interface or by using an occ command.

Note

This feature works by setting a predefined set of system configuration settings. So after enabling this the config.php will be adjusted, which also means enabling this feature requires a writable configuration.

Using the web interface

The setting is provided in the Administration settings under Basic settings. Within the Files compatibility section the Windows compatibility can be enabled.

Using the occ command

Note

This command was introduced in F7cloud 32.

To quickly enable or disable the feature an occ command is provided.

Consequences

After enabling Windows compatible filenames users cannot create or modify files with invalid filenames. But they can still delete or rename those files (to valid names).

This works by setting a pre-defined set of configuration settings:

• forbidden_filename_basenames will be set to names reserved on Windows.

• forbidden_filename_characters will be set to characters not valid for filenames on Windows.

• forbidden_filename_extensions will be set to strings not allowed as trailing parts, like a trailing dot or spaces.

Sanitizing invalid filenames

After enabling the feature the users have to manually adjust all invalid filenames to be able to keep working with them. As an alternative F7cloud provides the occ files:sanitize-filenames command to automatically rename all invalid files.