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ZDNet Reviews Samba 2.2
Jeremy Allison - Sam (of the Samba team) writes "eWeek
reviewed Samba 2.2
- they seem to like it !
It's certainly encouraging to get trade coverage like
this, I'm hoping the more people who report Samba use
in their organisation to press outlets will encourage
them to cover more Open Source/Free Software products !
"
However, after such a positive review, it grades Samba thus:
USABILITY C
CAPABILITY B
PERFORMANCE B
INTEROPERABILITY B
MANAGEABILITY B
These grades seem unjustified and unfair. Makes me wonder, what exactly is ZDNet comparing Samba to?
To me, the Samba project is probably one of the most important projects to support.
NT/2000, and soon XP, on the desktop is still a dominant force that might take a long time to change.
But, on the server front - that is a different story.
Linux, BSD + Samba = Diversity in the back room. Can't let MS have everything.
Samba Resources
Inside Samba 2.2
Introduction to Samba - Key concepts
Compiling, installing, and Configuring Samba for your environment
Getting Samba to samba: The configuration stage
When I saw "A Home For The Technologically Inept" I was just thinking of ZD Net.
1. give some of the shittiest software ever 5 star ratings
2. are routinely bashed for being MS biased
3. are suddenly considered a worthwhile source when they give an item of free software a good review
meaning:
1. the glowing review is meaningless, they give glowing reviews to buffed and polished turds
2. don't pat yourselves on the back too much, in case you appear two-faced
With Samba TNG, you can have a samba server in a PDC doing inter-domain trust, and have BDC's.
Also, you can use LDAP instead of smbpasswd, and if you also use LDAP for the posix accounts, you have one place to store the passwords. The passwords are still stored in different fields in the LDAP schema, but keeping them in sync should be mostly trivial.
It basically has a lot of the stuff that Samba 3.0 should have. The catch is that it is still very alpha and shaky, but is also making good progress. And there is a lot of discovery sharing between the two, meaning that both projects are moving forward at great speeds.
I hope Apple sees the value of including Samba in Mac OS X. Apple should help out the project, at least in some small form.
Lets embrace and extend SMB! : )
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Is a utility like the 'Netware Migration Tool' that came with NT (which also had a nifty Netware License Violation Feature) , call it "NukeNT" or something. Usage: nukeNT and it finds all file shares, create Samba shares and copy all the files over. Then turn off NT and enjoy the uptime.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Currently the new Mac OS X does not have very good networking support. It lacks Appletalk support except for printing. It also lacks Windows filesharing. It would be very simple for Apple to bundle Samba with Mac OS X. They could attach a neat GUI frontend and Mac OS X would instantly be a little more friendly to IT workers.
SAMBA without WinBind still isn't a general purpose File Server. You need to go and create the Unix accounts. My understanding is that WinBind is Linux only right now, but that it is being merged into the core code. Either way, SAMBA has a great niche in small group servers. For example, if I want a file server for 5-10 people, SAMBA rocks. You can join the SAMBA server to your NT Domain, setup the usermap, and give users access to the shares. For that purpose, I love SAMBA.
We are starting to evaluate SAMBA 2.2, it's great. Our core infrastructure here is NT4 for various reasons, but our OpenBSD machines all share out the relavent portions via SAMBA 2.0. It's terrific, if I'm not at a Unix workstation and want to work on a developing website, I connect to the share in Windows and go nuts. It's terrifically powerful.
From where SAMBA was 4 years ago when I started playing with it, it's a new world. You used to need to use separate accounts and not have reasonable NT integration. This allowed you to share out files, but not seemlessly. WinBind promises to make SAMBA servers drop and forget, just administer everything from your NT groups.
For a reasonable sized office (>10 people) running Windows, I think you'll be happiest with an NT 4.0 Domain with a PDC and BDC, but you can then do your file sharing off your SAMBA boxes. This saves a LOT on NT CALs, as you don't need NT CALs for PDC/BDC access, just file/print sharing. Let SAMBA handle that, and use NT as a domain controller. That way you have central logons without the expense. The cost of two NT servers isn't bad, the cost of NT CALs as your office grows and multiple file servers as access speed matters makes SAMBA great.
Additionally, if you do any web development, share our your site tree and you can edit files from anything. It's great, whether you are using Linux w/ smbmount, Windows with CIFS networking, MacOS Class w/ Dave, or MacOS X w/ Sharity, you have all your files accessable and can be editted locally. That sure beats SSH/Emacs.
Alex
If ever there was a glowing example of "Security through obscurity is no security at all", that's it.
And please, it's spelled "pr0n". We have standards here.
--
For a long time, the Open Source community has been suffering from the lack of software which is good for customers. Luckily, it is changing these days.
For the purpose of this post, I'd like to differentiate between "plain" good software, and consumer-good software. Just "good" means well-engineered. For example, Linux kernel is very good software. It can be used as such, for instance, in embedded applications. However, customers are interested in the more advanced layers. Therefore, the Linux kernel is useless unless it is used as a base for software which is both good in its own right, and easy [enough] to use.
It seems to me that now the various Linux projects have at last reached the usability threshold. Ximian GNOME 1.4 and the emerging open-source office suites (AbiWord, KOffice etc.) are already very easy and productive. Newer distros have very easy installations that minimize the amount of [command-line] hacking that has to be done to a zero. It is a major victory for Linux, since while we do retain the flexibility of configuring it the way we want, it now much easier for newbies to join the community of Linux users.
SMB is a very major step in this direction. It is definitely good software; it is quite user-friendly, and is still developed further in that direction. It also provides something that Microsoft does not: unconditional interoperability. Linux will support everything.
It is very delightful to finally see Linux becoming ready for the millions of customers. With stuff like SMB and WINE, it is no longer a question of Microsoft vs. Non-Microsoft. It is becoming expensive vs. free, bad vs. good and slow vs. fast. We can win these battles.
I like the fact that there is a "check Prices" link next to the article. Too bad it dosen't work. That would be sweet... $0.00.
...is the ability to disregard "hidden" shares that are suffixed with $. Gave my unscrupulous co-workers many hours of paranoia wondering why files that are supposed to be in their super-secret warez/p0rn/mp3 shares keep surfacing in a public directory.
1) lots of options - And not only lots of options, but lots of documentation and explanation of how to use the options to your advantage when setting up your Samba server. Out of all of the Linux meddling I've done so far (which, granted, isn't that much), I think Samba is one of the easiest packages to work with.
2) developer/customer support - Just from all of the posts that I have seen Jeremy post to slashdot, I can see that supporting his software is very important to him and his team. This attitude of serving his 'customers' in a top notch manner has largely been lost in today's 'new' economy. I can't begin to tell you how much I despise 'customer service' as it usually involves sitting on the phone or at the store, not being served. And usually crappy service when you do get it.
I, in fact, do not care if ZDNet or anyone else likes Samba. I'm sold on it merely from the human factor of the people who write it. That alone will keep me coming back for more. My advice to the Samba team - KEEP IT UP!