Setting up Lightroom2 on large network?

Messiah Khan

Messiah Khan

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Alasdair Fowler
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I wonder if any of you guys/girls can figure this one for me. I want to run Lightroom 2 in our digital lab here at uni, both for teaching and student/staff use. There will be about 30-40 Mac Pros all set up on the network, with 100+ users all wanting to a access their images and library file as easy as possible. Problem is, Lightroom won't let you save the Lrcat file on a network drive! Even though I could have fibrechannel direct to a dedicated server, the program won't let me. Is there any way around this?

Or is there any ideas of how to set the system up so it is as easy and reliable as possible. I could ask everyone to use external hardrives/memory sticks to save the library file to, but if this gets corrupted, there is no backup (Unlike the RAID and timed backup of a server). Or the file could be used locally, then manually uploaded and downloaded from the server each time they log on, but this is really annoying and fiddly. Id really like a system where the users can log on to their account (Which connects via Active Directory if that has any relevance), load up lightroom and be faced with their images and their catalogue, no matter which computer they are on. Any ideas?
 
Hold on, why won't Lightroom let you save to a network share? If its mapped as a local drive?
 
Lightroom for Windows will let you have the catalogue on a mapped drive (i.e. if it is assigned a drive letter), but there are tales on the web of it becoming corrupted. Storing images on mapped network drives works fine.

One option might be to have them working with a single catalogue per shoot/project and just to open the relevant catalogue from the network drive. This would minimise the loss if a single catalogue was corrupted. (Some photographers work with on a 1 catalogue per shoot basis out of choice anyway).
 
i cant see how storing the lcat on a mapped network drive would cause issues, as far as windows is concerned its just another drive. as long as the network link is stable and fast then should be fine in my opinion.
 
Lightroom is not designed to be used in this way across the network. It's built to have the catalogue locally.

You could fool windows by using symbolic links, but that's a real pita.

Virtualisation with a file level redirect is another option (use App-V if you've got the MDOP pack for those desktops)
 
Jason is right and I can see problems. From what little I know of the SQL database used in Lightroom it's designed for single user operation. Having multiple users trying to access it at one time could cause database corruption.

Also why would you want someone else have access to you images. This is effectively what would happen.

Would a better idea be to store the images on a central server, and students have individual accounts with their own catalogue. Stops other people screwing with you work!!
 
My 2p on this. I am not an expert, so please correct me if I am wrong.

I've got Lr running against catalog files on my local PC drive, with my Pictures stored on a Mapped Drive (E: or F: drive for example). It has worked for me for over 2 years and 16000 pictures in my main catalog.

I used to have the Catalog files (LRCAT and LRView (i think) files) on the same mapped drive, but for a reason I can no longer recall, I moved them back to local drive.

Frankly, I didn't even consider the fact that the catalog could be corrupted, I just assumed this would work with no issues.

Lr would not accept UNC paths (\\pc3\Lightroom Catalog) at all when I tried.

I have considered copying the catalog files back and forth between my desktop and my laptop, so I am using a single set of catalog files for both, but have not done so yet. (I believe Lr licensing allows an install on 1 desktop and 1 laptop)

You must also remember that Lr catalogs are not MULTIUSER - you cannot have more than one person/PC accessing the same catalog file at the same time. I think Lr uses a 'lock file' mechanism to prevent this, but even if it doesn't, this will cause problems.

I hope you have considered licensing as well. You cannot have two PCs opening Lr.exe from the same physical location, unless you have two separate licenses. That would be a violation of the license agreement, and I'm sure your Uni doesn't want to get into that mess.
 
I think it will have to be local/USB catalogs or even move the catalog to the local machine for using Lightroom, then put it back on the network drive afterwards (this could probably even be done with an Apple script on start up). Obviously there is no issue with storing the image files on the network drive.
 
I wanted to do this with my machines and store the library on the server but it just would not work. I had planned to try it again so if anyone does get it going let me know and I will do the same. Might try it now......
 
This is what you get if you choose to attach to a library file on a network drive:

lrcat1.png


will have a mess.....
 
Right tried

Copy folders to server
Move the Lightroom directory to the desktop by dragging it
Create a new directory called Lightroom in the pictures directory
Select "Lightroom 2 Catalog.ircat and hold (CMD) + press 'L' - to make an alias
Copy the alias file into the new Lightroom directory
Rename alias file without "alias" at the end.

Run lightroom and ........

Same error message !!!!!
 
Oo another idea but will take 10 minutes to implement.....
 
Right here goes.....


The reason you can't do it normally or using an alias is because it is a database file that cannot be locked to make it single user and as such two people attaching to it at the same time would break it so we need to place it somewhere where this sharing is not apparent to LR and here is how.....

1 - First BACKUP your current LR catalogue and image files .....


2 - If you have not used light room before then run LR and create a default library.


3 - Exit LR


4 - Run Disc utility
LRcatTip1.png



5 - Click New Image and create a disc image on desktop.

This image has to be big enough for the LR directory and your entire photo directory.
The field "Save As" is the name of the DMG file.
The field "Name" is the name the the virtual drive will appear as.
The field "Size" is the size that the drive will be, make sure this is much bigger than you need (mine is 75Gb).
LRcatTip2.png


The drive will be automatically mounted.

LRcatTip4.png



6 - Now copy your lightroom directory and your photograph directory into the image too
LRcatTip5.png



7 - MOVE your existing Photograph library from it's current location onto the desktop


8 - MOVE your existing LightRoom directory from inside Pictures onto the desktop


9 - Run LR and you get the create new catalogue or use existing prompt - select existing


10 - You will now see this
LRcatTip6.png



11 - Click "change" and go to the catalogue inside the mounted drive


12 - Select Choose and Continue


13 - Now in the left hand side of the screen right click on the photo directory which should have a question mark on it and select find missing folder then navigate to the photo directory inside the DMG file
LRcatTip7.png



14 - Everything should now work as it did before


15 - Once you are happy with this exit LR


16 - Copy the image to the network share


NOW THIS BIT IS FOR EACH COMPUTER THAT WILL USE THE SHARE.....


17 - Open the network share and navigate to the DMG file and open that


18 - Now locate the file "Lightroom 2 catalog.ircat" and drag this to the doc (because it is a data file rather than a program you must drag it to the data area of your doc ie below {or if the doc is at the bottom, to the right} of the dotted line near the trash bin.

Now all you have to do to run it is click on the icon in the doc, it will automatically open the network share and mount the DMG file for you (because its MacOS :))
 
If you try and attach to it whilst it is on the other computer then you get this error message:

LRcatTip9.png


So on each computer when you have finished using Light Room you must either LOG OUT or alternatively you can EJECT the DMG file.
 
I have just restored my LR files back to normal and using Remote I have set the Mac Pro creating a 50Gb DMG file which I will then transfer to the server. Once that is done I will select the folder containing all my images in LR and light click then "Export directory As Catalog" my entire collection of image over to the new DMG file and see how good it works (6500+ images mostly DNG files). You can use this method to backup using Time Machine to a server so that is where the idea came from. That is not slowed down much so hopefully this will be of a usable speed. It certainly should be if you have a fast server and a Gb network.

Once this is all up and running I will be a complete step by step method from start to finish to move everything to a network. I would select 'create backup' whilst importing and select another location though as doing everything in a DMG file creates another thing that COULD go wrong.....
 
neil_g said:
interesting..

to me that doesnt make sense how that would work on PC though, how it would differentiate between drive types.
Click to expand...

No that method (and I am about to post a better step by step including moving your existing stuff) only works for the Mac! So you can share your LR folder amongst several machines on the network.

For the PC you will need to use an alternative method, I would suggest drive mapping to start with.

I cannot think of a way to share your LR directory amongst PCs & Macs
 
Right the instructions have been ammended to move the existing photo directory and the LR directory and it is all tested and works.

I will add more screen shots in a mo but they are on the mac pro and it has a broken keychain due to Apple's dodgy .me service !!
 
cowasaki said:
No that method (and I am about to post a better step by step including moving your existing stuff) only works for the Mac! So you can share your LR folder amongst several machines on the network.

For the PC you will need to use an alternative method, I would suggest drive mapping to start with.

I cannot think of a way to share your LR directory amongst PCs & Macs
Click to expand...

sorry i wasnt amazingly clear, i mean i dont get how lightroom would determine what was not a local unremovable drive on a pc
 
cowasaki said:
No that method (and I am about to post a better step by step including moving your existing stuff) only works for the Mac! So you can share your LR folder amongst several machines on the network.

For the PC you will need to use an alternative method, I would suggest drive mapping to start with.

I cannot think of a way to share your LR directory amongst PCs & Macs
Click to expand...

I haven't got a clue what all that was about, nevertheless, You are obviously 'Da Man':cool:
 
neil_g said:
sorry i wasnt amazingly clear, i mean i dont get how lightroom would determine what was not a local unremovable drive on a pc
Click to expand...

Because they are different Device Types, and it's pretty easy to programatically identify them

Local Disk
FILE_DEVICE_DISK 0x00000007
FILE_DEVICE_DISK_FILE_SYSTEM 0x00000008

External
FILE_DEVICE_NETWORK_FILE_SYSTEM 0x00000014

USB Drives get flagged as removable devices, which again you can programatically identify.
 
If you want to use a removable drive use a eSATA drive as they are flagged as a fixed drive!
 
Updated with instructions on using the shared light room drive on another computer.

So this does not get lost I am going to do a new thread with this as instructions to go in the relevant place (as I've spent hours working on it today!)
 
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