FC6 and Samba

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

Craig White wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-03-10 at 11:20 -0600, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>> Craig White wrote:
>>> I am a samba team member, if you think that I lack objectivity
>>>
>>> http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/SambaWiki:About
>>>
>> Then why are you giving mis-information?
> ----
> I don't recall giving any mis-information, I asked for some clarity
> because I saw only one benefit (file locks) and many drawbacks for using
> cifs mounts vs nfs mounts for Linux clients. I asked for your
> perspective - seemed to be a pretty reasonable request.

The mis-information is in the quote below from your message. I do
not see how you can square the statements about Posix with the
information from the mount.cifs man page. If you were just talking
about smbfs, that would be one thig, but you use smbfs/cifs, and
that implies that your statements apply to both.

As for the drawbacks, they are not an issue if you have mainly
Windows clients. You just configure your Linux users to match your
Windows users. If you are going to have users logging in from both
Windows and Linux machines using the same user names, you end up
doing that anyway. It would be more work to implement NFS servers to
serve the same directories when you are only talking a few machines.

> ----
>>>> sure - a smbfs/cifs mount pretty much discards the concept of posix
>>>> users and doesn't understand Posix attributes, has no concept of the
>>>> case in file names and finally doesn't permit executables.
>> Then you have in "man mount.cifs":
>>
>> uid=arg
>>    sets the uid that will own all files on the mounted filesystem.
>>    It may be specified as either a username or a numeric uid. This
>>    parameter  is ignored when the target server supports the CIFS
>>    Unix extensions.
>>
>> file_mode=arg
>>    If the server does not support the CIFS Unix extensions this
>>    overrides the default file mode.
>>
>> I would think to most people that this would be show that cifs
>> understands Posix users and attributes as long as the server does. I
>> can find the documentation that says Samba does support the Unix
>> extensions, but I would think that you would already know this.
> ----
> Unfortunately, I use RHEL and/or CentOS for servers which has a much
> older version of samba than Fedora (3.0.9-x for RHEL 3 and 3.0.10-x for
> RHEL 4)
> ----
But the thread was about people using FC5/6.

>> There is also this in the cifs.txt file from the kernel documentation:
<-------------------[ snip ]-------------------->
> I don't have this file on my system but I believe that it must exist.
> 
 rpm -qf cifs.txt
kernel-doc-2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6

> I'm not sure that the suggestion that cifs 'can provide a
> reasonable alternative to NFSv4 for fileserving in some Linux to
> Linux environments' equates but I agree that the issue of what
> constitutes a reasonable alternative can be subjectively determined
> by those who use it.
> 
It makes sense when you have to provide it for Windows machines
anyway, you only have a few Linux machines, and you only need the
same directories for your Linux machines. In a case like that, you
are not going to be sharing executables, just data. You do not gain
anything by adding NFS to the mix.
> 
> When you consider the confusion that is created for users with a file
> system mount that may or may not support durable UNIX attributes, I have
> to believe that NFS is a preferable methodology for Linux to Linux
> environments (file locking issues with simultaneous Windows usage
> ignored).
> 
It depends on the environment. If all your Samba servers are already
going to be providing UNIX attributes, then the only mounts that
will not provide it are going to be from Windows machines that would
not support them even if you were using NFS.

While I don't think cifs is the best choice for Linux to Linux
mounts in most cases, there are times when it is. It is probably a
good choice for a home network that is a mix of Windows and Linux
machines. It cuts down on the number of file servers you have to
learn to configure. It is also a good choice for a network that has
mainly Windows clients with only a few Linux clients.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!