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Learn from Samba-Man Jeremy Allison
Jeremy is a leading Samba maintainer, and therefore one of the world's leading experts on Samba, which is often held up (along with Apache and the Gimp) as a sterling example of efficient and useful Open Source development. In the interest of full disclosure, we must mention that Jeremy is now employed by VA Linux, but that his primary responsibility is still Samba, just as it was when he worked for SGI. Look for Jeremy's answers to your questions within the next week.
Hello!
.14. I am amazed at how well it works even though TNG msrpc is only really NT 4.0 support.
I recently got a Linux server and Windows 2000 clients working with TNG
I figured out how to get the w2k clients into compat mode (because all authencated users no matter what from a nt4 doman become 'User'), but, is there an effort to get w2k domain groups working at all? Is there a hack to get it to work?
Also, I thank you and all of the Samba Team for releasing such a solid product. Samba itself is a great asset to opensource developent and my personal goals to avoid dealing with CALS.
Where can I send [postcards,pizza,beer,etc]?
-- dieman - Scott Dier
What other unexplored potential do you see in windows filesharing besides what the official "Microsoft Spec" is?
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How does the potential use/misuse of these laws affect the future viability of the Samba project?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Where do you see Samba headed in the future, other than to be more compatible with Windows servers and clients? Higher levels of security (read encryption) between Samba only servers?
I've seen many setups using Samba as an extra level of security in the DMZ of a firewall - using the SMB protocol to keep data synchronized instead of normal Unix file transfer protocols (ie ftp or nfs) that are better known to the cracker community.
Are there any changes in the Win2000 SMB protocol that breaks the current Samba implementation? If so, do you think they were deliberate?
-- My neighbors dog has a four inch clit.
My question: When, if ever, do you see samba having a "dynamic mounting" of shares? Possibly a smbshares.conf that is read any each mount specified is monitored for activity. If the share dies, it is unmounted until it is available again, at which time it is remounted.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I've been following the Samba mailing lists and know about the difficulty of Samba TNG dealing with W2K.   I'm curious that when changing things to make TNG compatible with W2k, how much that will break compatibility in the mixed Windows environment (knowing that W2K itself breaks alot in the mixed Windows environment).
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
My understanding of, for instance, Mac Services for Windows NT and UNIX Services for Windows NT is that it provides services from the same databases, just with different protocols.
So if you can see where this is going, is there any work on making samba able to make use of network-wide databases for user authentication, share specification (I know it can already use the autohome map, but more than that!), etc.?
In particular, I'm interested in things like:
- Being able to authenticate netatalk, samba, and UNIX users all the same way (i.e., not having smbpasswd, NIS, and
/etc/passwd all need to be updated every time a user changes his password or is added) - Being able to specify at the same time what my file server serve up, via netatalk, samba, and NFS (so I don't edit three configuration files every time I add a share, or move a share)
- Being able to specify from one system what each and every file server serves up, without having to connect to the machine in question and edit the smb.conf by hand (or by web)
Clearly this depends on more than just the samba team, but are there plans to add NIS authentication (i.e., instead of or in addition to smbpasswd), NetInfo authentication, and/or smb.conf NetInfo or NIS databases?--Matthew
Microsoft has apparently molested Kerberos in their latest W2K upgrade, can you clear up some of the confusion about how this will effect samba server->NT.
I've heard their exploitation of the protocol wont effect samba, some say it wreaks havoc, whats the scoop ?
Jeremy, first, a BIG thank you for your work,
I am sure you could lay a pizza-track from Earth
to Jupiter by now with the money you saved people
who would have had to buy Windows NT-Server.
The issue of reverse-engineering has become a
very *hot* issue recently with the advent of
CSS source-code to authenticate DVD-ROMs and
also descramble the content. My questions:
- How much reverse engineering went into the SMB
and WINS protocols, in contrast to real coding,
say up to the first usable share exported from
a Unix machine?
- Did you peek under Microsoft's hood and examine
some VXDs or NT kernel drivers to get to those
last and hardest 10% of insight?
- How important do you think is the roll-out of
working PDC-code?
- Finally, on the law side of things, there is a
German law that explicitly allows reverse
engineering for the purpose of interworkability.
What has been YOUR legal situation (being "down
under"), has Microsoft ever asked you to stop
your work (BEFORE they needed it in their DOJ
case), or even threaten you with legal action
or a life-time supply of pizza?
Thanks so much,
Stephan Eisvogel
eisvogel(at)hawo.stw.uni-erlangen.de
Samba? Samba? That word says one thing to me, and one thing only: Some slinky disreputable Latin American gigolo character, skulking around the suburbs and worming his way into the hearts of virtuous women, destroying their lives and moving on. The word "samba" says nothing to me of quality or reliability. Nothing.
So Jeremy, I ask you: Why do you choose to be associated with such a grossly disreputable and frankly immoral product? Why do you choose to spend your days lazing around the Beverly Wilshire, oiling your pencil-thin mustache, langorously sipping mai-tai's and attempting to seduce other men's wives? Aren't you disgusted with yourself and the low state to which you've fallen?
Have you no shame?
What are the plans for ACL support? I mean the stuff that comes up when you do (in NT) Properties, that second tab, then the Permissions button and get the list of users and groups. Right now we can mess with the existing user and group, but adding people fails.
Will this tie in with the Linux patch to add POSIX ACLs, or will it happen above that layer in a file Samba maintains?
The possibility exists for me to subvert W2K at my place of business if Samba can do this for my users. I hope this happens soon.
I have been out of the loop for a very long time, but was wondering how things a going with the VFS stuff and if anybody else has picked up on it. The possibilities are endless. One could "share" FTP sites, databases, tape drives, archives (tar, gz, zip) to the masses who use Windows clients while keeping them in the familiar surroundings of the Windows Explorer filemanager.
What are the plans for VFS in SAMBA?
Keep up the good work.
Do you work on SAMBA for the thrill of the challenge of reverse engineering SMB or just for the practical uses? If MicroSoft were to open their protocols (perhaps as part of a DoJ settlement), would you still find it as much fun?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Now that Windows 2000 can use a basterized version of LDAP vs. the undecriptable SAM, does it become any more feasible to have Access Control Lists (ACL) work from Unix? What are your feelings on the "extenstions" that Microsoft made to the LDAP spec - are they insurmountable to decode?
With the release of Windows2000 we saw the introduction of a new computer, user, group managment system. Microsoft included some ability to be backwards compatible with WindowsNT Servers, Microsoft also included the ability to run Windows2000 in "native mode." which effectivly disallows any NT client/server from participating in it's user management. How will this affect Samba? Will Samba include Windows2000 "native mode" support, also will the AD tools used to administer a Windows2000 Server be able to administer a Samba server?
I am currently in the process of writing a university-level report for a course I am taking. The topic of the report will be SMB vs. NFS. I am not trying to identify a clearly "surperiour" protocol, I am seeking rather to simply present as much detailed facts/benefits of each and have the reader decide for themselves.
Obviously you would be an ideal person to ask about this topic. What are your feelings as to the advantages SMB has over NFS, if any, and how could the benefits of NFS, if any, be carried over into SMB?
I am continually amazed each time a major release of Samba comes out how well it works. My question is, I know that the Samba group has been working towards make Samba a suitable replacement for NT. How far do you expect that to go. I know you're in a continual battle with MS changing things with every minor release, but do you expect to someday get to the point where I can completely replace my NT PDC machine with a Unix/Linux box that has the same functionality?
Perhaps the same question stated differently is what are the long term goals for the project in relation to NT PDC Server compatibility?
Any estimates on how long such compatibility will take?
Thanks again for all the hard work!!