# [solved] nfs encoding

## antonone

Hi,

I have a Gentoo box on my desktop box and Ubuntu on the laptop, and use NFS to exchange files between them. The problem is that Ubuntu uses UTF-8 to encode file names (and since I'm from Poland, I use polish letters sometimes, so it does matter), and Gentoo uses Latin-2 (iso8859-2), so I end up having junk letters in names when I'm on Gentoo viewing files on Ubuntu. 

I'm wondering if anyone knows some option I can add to tell a mount program on Gentoo that Ubuntu uses UTF-8 filenames? Or maybe an option to tell NFS server on Ubuntu to export filenames in Latin-2? Man pages doesn't have any traces of 'encoding' or 'charset' for NFS protocol.

Thanks for any help.Last edited by antonone on Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:18 am; edited 1 time in total

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## pappy_mcfae

You could always begin by reading the Gentoo UTF-8 document. I followed it, and I'm pretty sure it's working.

Hope that helps

Blessed be!

Pappy

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## antonone

Thanks for the answer, but it seems like an overkill. Isn't there any other option? I want to change a program to comply with operating system, not the other way around  :Smile: 

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## pappy_mcfae

Overkill? For me, yeah, I'll agree it's about me being a touch anally retentive. However, I figured since Windoze is UTF-8 compliant, why shouldn't my Linux be as well. Besides, I like looking at non "American" letters sometimes.

For you, on the other hand, with letters that exist in UTF-8 land, I'd think it would be a necessity. 

But no, I don't know of a way to set up something as UTF-8 other than the way I did it using the document I recommended.

Good luck.

Blessed be!

Pappy

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## antonone

Well, maybe you're right, but I don't have problems with polish letters on Gentoo. Latin2 supports these letters, so there's no need to change that. Next thing is, I think I'll have a problem using aterm, because aterm doesn't support UTF-8, and I like this terminal. I only want to be able to mount Ubuntu's UTF-8 filenames as Latin2 filenames.

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## manaka

You could use samba instead of NFS. It can convert between charsets.

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## timeBandit

 *antonone wrote:*   

> I only want to be able to mount Ubuntu's UTF-8 filenames as Latin2 filenames.

 That would require NFS to re-encode the filenames on the fly--something I'm almost certain it cannot do.

You don't need to use UTF-8 everywhere on your Gentoo system if you'd really rather not--but to interoperate with UTF-8 systems at this level, you probably should. I understand your desire to change the "misbehaving" program rather than the operating system, but in truth, NFS is a filesystem and a filesystem is really part of the operating system. So this arguably is the minimal change.  :Wink: 

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## antonone

@manaka: Actually, I thought about using Samba. But somehow It doesn't feel very good  :Wink: 

@timeBandit: I see. OK, if there isn't any other way to do it, I think I'll follow that guide, if I find some free time.

Thanks everyone for the answers  :Smile: 

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## pappy_mcfae

You're welcome, and good luck!

Blessed be!

Pappy

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