Using Samba to bring files from Ubuntu Mate to Macintosh but some text files are turned into executables

Question

I'm not sure if this is the best Stack Exchange to use, but the question concerns Mac, Linux and Samba.

I have a new-to-me Apple Macintosh laptop (MacOS 10.15.7 (Catalina)) and I am have set up Samba (fairly standard changes to /etc/samba/smb.conf) to make files on my Ubuntu Mate (UM) laptop available to my Mac. There are no Windows machines in my network.

Copying files from UM to the Mac works. However I have a lot of documents on UM which do not have extensions. If these files are plain text files, then on arrival at the Mac they are treated as executable programs.

(Other file types such as png are treated correctly whether they have an extension or not.)

For example, I have two text files in a folder called test on the UM. The command ls gives:

$ ls -al
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 2 bob bob 4096 May 12 22:23 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 bob bob 4096 May 12 22:22 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 bob bob   24 May 12 22:23 test file
-rw-rw-r-- 1 bob bob   24 May 12 22:23 test file.txt

Properties show "Allow executing file as program" is off and SELinux context: unknown

On Mac after copying from UM:

% ls -al
total 16
drwxr-xr-x  4 bob  staff  128 May 13 00:23 .
drwxr-xr-x  7 bob  staff  224 May 13 00:23 ..
-rwx------  1 bob  staff   24 May 12 22:23 test file
-rwx------@ 1 bob  staff   24 May 12 22:23 test file.txt

Get Info on "test file" says it is Unix executable; double-clicking on it (in Finder) fails in a new terminal window. Get Info on "test file.txt" says it is Plain Text Document; double-clicking on it opens it in TextEdit.

I can open "test file" in TextEdit by right-clicking the file, choosing "Open with..." and finding the TextEdit application, but this is a little tedious.

Are there any downsides to specifying always open executables in TextEdit? Alternatively, is there a way to automatically make the Mac know that these files arriving from Samba are Plain Text?

Answer 1

I found a way to automatically make the Mac know that these files arriving from Samba are Plain Text. The wiki entry https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configure_Samba_to_Work_Better_with_Mac_OS_X recommends adding the following lines of code to the /etc/samba/smb.conf file on the Ubuntu Mate machine. (Followed by $ sudo service smbd restart) The lines are inserted at the beginning of the [global] section.

min protocol = SMB2
vfs objects = fruit streams_xattr  
fruit:metadata = stream
fruit:model = MacSamba
fruit:posix_rename = yes 
fruit:veto_appledouble = no
fruit:wipe_intentionally_left_blank_rfork = yes 
fruit:delete_empty_adfiles = yes 

I understand almost nothing of this but it seems to work. When the files arrive at the Mac, they have the same permissions as the originals. The .txt file has Finder Kind "Plain Text" and text files without an extension have Kind "TextEdit".

(I had previously set up the Mac to always open files of type "Unix executable" with TextEdit. I don't know if that makes any difference.)