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Samba 4 Reaches "Susan" Stage

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-love-that-description dept.

superfebs writes "Some day ago Samba4 reached a pretty serious test stage. Promises are beautiful: full SMB protocol implementation, Active Directory Domain Controller facility, and more; here's a full roadmap."

75 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Heavyweight Protocol. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Samba 4 Reaches "Susan" Stage"

    So what happens when it reaches the "CowboyNeal" stage?

    1. Re:Heavyweight Protocol. by DARKFORCE123 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I am more in the mood for a lightweight protocol . Get back with me when it reaches the 'Mary Kate Olsen' stage.

    2. Re:Heavyweight Protocol. by xanadu-xtroot.com · · Score: 3, Funny
      So what happens when it reaches the "CowboyNeal" stage?

      1. We start seeing duplicate releases of the same version...
      --
      I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
      I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
  2. Re:Some dayS by pe1rxq · · Score: 3, Funny

    What is a 'sentance'?

    --
    Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
  3. Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just remember, that if it wasn't for Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton, most of the ideas in Samba 4 would never have even been thought of, never mind implemented.

    It'd be nice if they gave him some credit somewhere instead of just blanking him out because he 'rocked the boat'.

    1. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by mralert · · Score: 3, Informative

      For more information on lkcl; Here is a quite interesting presentation by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton (lkcl) from a SSLUG (a Danish LUG) meeting: http://sslug.mmmanager.org/Members/BabyTux/luke_le ighton

      --
      http://www.mralert.com/ - Free web site monitoring
    2. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by Vlad_the_Inhaler · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Is he the guy behind Samba TNG?

      I never knew the name but was told that he was difficult to work with. Classic innuendo tactics really, unless it happens to be the truth and that I can't judge.

      --
      Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
    3. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by lkcl · · Score: 5, Informative

      yep, that's me.

      yes, i failed. i took on a fascinating and very large task - to help EVERYONE out of a difficult hole, both microsoft, the open source community AN D its users, AND microsoft and samba's competitors (the Storage Area Network community) i succeeded in getting the knowledge out there but i failed in implementing it in an "acceptable" way.

      yes, the times when i was working on samba got progressively more painful as the difference between the SAMBA_NTDOM and the main cvs branch got steadily further and further apart - in the end approximately 100,000 to 120,000 lines of code apart.

      yes, without the work that i did for four years, spurred by paul ashton's initial decoding of the NT domains logon system, the samba team would likely still be peddling you a system that was compatible with windows 95. that's a gross exaggeration: the Active Directory interoperability is a lot easier but still fraught with difficulties.

      one of the key problems was that andrew tridgell found it increasingly difficult to actually accept that i could think of things that he could not.

      he also had great difficulty, as most people do, in accepting the level of complexity of the MSRPC (aka DCE/RPC) subsystem and quite how inter-connected the whole thing is.

      in the end, i had to use other people (such as tim potter, to whom i am very grateful) to get ideas and code accepted.

      in particular, the winbind project: note the striking similarity between the use of unix domain sockets in winbind, which andrew tridgell reviewed and accepted, and the use of unix domain sockets in Samba TNG, which andrew tridgell REFUSED to review and REFUSED to accept.

      i was told, by andrew tridgell, things like "you should try to log in as root occasionally, and if you break out in a cold sweat, lie down for a while until the feeling goes away".

      whilst i learned an awful lot about systems programming from andrew, the way that he treated me was with disdain and complete lack of respect - which was terribly, terribly disappointing for me because, being absolutely honest, i loved and respected him greatly.

      anyway: he learned nothing from me, and consequently, he has set samba's development back by at least ten man-years.

      luke howard, in three years, ON HIS OWN, produced XAD (www.padl.com) which he has been selling for at least the past two years as a commercial product - an NT 5 Active Directory Server.

    4. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by lkcl · · Score: 5, Interesting

      yeh, i'll accept that - both parts.

      i see patterns. i mean i SEE patterns. it freaks people out. especially those people who are insecure in their abilities and position.

      one thing i do have a lot of difficulty with when i fail to explain or get across a deep understanding of a complex topic.

      i find it particularly frustrating in areas where people are supposed to have the capabilities and expertise to cope with a certain level of complexity.

      but - basically - the one way to absolutely GUARANTEE to make me see pink mist is for you to be dishonest. whereever i find people being dishonest with themselves, me, or other people, i WILL go for the throat - without fail.

      and it gets me into difficulties. c'est la vie.

    5. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by Vlad_the_Inhaler · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Thanks - a far more interesting response than I had imagined seeing here.

      Yup, I had noticed that Samba mainstream was drifting towards the TNG model when winbindd came out.

      What I said above was only part of the story though, the claim was that you wanted to introduce several additional daemons and this was deemed too complicated back then.

      All this is a few years back, I was a Samba administrator up until mid-2000 but have been in Novell shops with no smb since so my memory of the details is fading. That website you see as my homepage here has not been updated for a while and probably will not be unless something changes workwise.

      --
      Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
    6. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by lkcl · · Score: 4, Interesting

      one other thing that i really should make clear is that i used - and still use - a programming technique which recently gained a name: "extreme programming".

      basically what i do is i build up a picture in my head of what results i want to achieve, and how, in broad architectural terms that that picture should be built.

      then i start incessantly, repeatedly, rapidly, bluntly and brutally chipping away at the details: in the case of coding that could result in 30 cvs commits per day.

      does this work? oops, no it didn't, let's try something else.

      occasionally, usually due to exhaustion or frustration, i would sit and re-think.

      i bounced hundreds of messages off of the samba mailing lists, most of which were not actually understood but that was okay because it allowed me to think out loud.

      this process drove jeremy allison completely nuts.

      jeremy's development model was radically different: very controlled, very calculated, very infrequent cvs commits (relatively speaking) - if it's not ready, if it don't work, it ain't going in the cvs repository.

      contrast this with me having at best a pentium 90 with 16mb of memory (my fastest machine) and having to do partial-builds (ccache didn't exist) due to a complete build taking 90 minutes, and random cvs commits in case someone stole my computer from the cybercafe... ... i frequently had no choice but to commit in code at the risk of breaking the build.

      this also drove jeremy nuts.

      c'est la vie.

    7. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not surprised they chucked you off the project then. In the long run, it makes sense to try to work well with others, even if it does mean short term compromises.

      You need to learn from your social mistakes in the same way you learn from coding/design errors.

    8. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by lkcl · · Score: 4, Interesting

      working with others requires cooperation both ways.

      _i_ have learned where i have failed.

      now PLEASE will you do me the favour of communicating to andrew and to jeremy where THEY have failed.

      the samba team is not a team at all: it is a group of people who work on their own areas with hardly any actual cooperation at all.

      i WISH that the samba project had an ASF charter, with an additional clause that lends equal weight to "strategic" decisions in the part about code being accepted on "technical merit".

      if the ASF charter was in place on the samba project, so many many people would not have left it in frustration.

      there is much more that i could say but the number of comments on this topic is getting high (and consequently thinner), and is distracting me from my work.

    9. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by lkcl · · Score: 3, Interesting

      p.s. they didn't throw me off: i left. too many incredibly hurtful comments from andrew. the one i will always remember is where he thanked tim potter for completing winbind, without acknowledging that i had helped nor that winbind would have even been possible without the dce/rpc client libraries i'd written.

    10. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm only going to say one thing here, and then leave it at that. As has been pointed out before, Luke has a very selective memory about his involvement with Samba.

      Yes he made substantial contributions, for which we were very grateful, but in the end the difficulties in working together outweighed the benfits.

      I'm not going to say any more - those who are interested can read the relevent email archives.

      Jeremy.

    11. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Helpful hint: most other human beings don't see the sort of social pathology you just described as being something to pat yourself on the back for.

      Good luck in your chosen career as a lone-gunman coder.

    12. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by Blnky · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your not the only one.

      > i see patterns...

      That makes perfect sense to me as I also see patterns in the same way and have had the same experience with it freaking other people out. I wouldn't be surprised if you routinely see "patterns within patterns" and "patterns of patterns".

      > i find it particularly frustrating in areas...

      I agree. If you are to be qualified for something then you should be able to understand the various complexities that arise. Granted, no one will get everything perfect, within their claimed area of expertise, but it is aggravating when they have a 50+% failure rate.

      > but - basically...

      Again, I have to say "ditto". It doesn't matter whether you are being dishonest with me or someone else. I get really peeved. The same goes with hypocrisy.

      > and it gets me into difficulties

      That is a good way to put it. This makes me wonder, what would a group of similar inviduals like us be able to accomplish? Would we fragment against each other or would we be able to accomplish far more than has recently been seen? Perhaps someday I shall have the chance to find out.

    13. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by lkcl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      jeremy, can i suggest that you read _all_ of the comments that i have made here?

      a basic summary of those comments is that i accept responsibility for my failings.

      can you do the same?

      also - there is nothing wrong with my memory. i remember every painful word, every hurtful comment - mine, yours and andrew's.

    14. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by lkcl · · Score: 2, Informative

      warning, warning, that presentation is about two hours long!!!

    15. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by T-Ranger · · Score: 2, Funny

      First, I have no idea who you are, nor do I know anything about SAMBA politics. For that matter, I don't know much about SAMBA either.

      Here is an idea. Learn how to use your shift key. I've only read about 10 of your posts in this discussion, and I have already decided that the other guy is right.

    16. Re:Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton by Etyenne · · Score: 2, Funny

      You are an interesting and insightful person. I volunteer to buy you a keyboard with working Shift keys; it would make reading your intervention so much more enjoyable.

      --
      :wq
  4. Andrew Tridgell - a free software hero by mralert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Andrew Tridgell is the man behind two of the most interesting and usable free software products available; samba and rsync. Samba is truly great, but I find rsync so incredibly useful and smart. Does the Windows world have any kind of rsync-equivalent? (Besides the Windows rsync-ports, which require a lot of extra stuff like Cygwin.) Backing up data with rsync makes me sleep well at night :-) Thanks Tridgell! :-)

    --
    http://www.mralert.com/ - Free web site monitoring
    1. Re:Andrew Tridgell - a free software hero by MisterP · · Score: 5, Informative

      Check out cwrsync

      It is a stand alone package of rsync for windows. It even comes with an installer to make it run as a service. I use to it replicate web content on some faily major websites.

    2. Re:Andrew Tridgell - a free software hero by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Robocopy, part of the Windows resource kits, is what I use on Windows.

    3. Re:Andrew Tridgell - a free software hero by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 4, Informative

      Robocopy != Rsync

      Rsync copies the minimum amount required to make the old file == the new file - works well over slow links. Robocopy can only copy whole files.

    4. Re:Andrew Tridgell - a free software hero by Q+Who · · Score: 2, Informative

      Check out Unison File Synchronizer.

      It's bi-directional file/directory synchronizer, works over just ssh, cross-platform, very fast.

      Extremely useful when you need to keep, say, home and university accounts in sync, or do remote backups.

  5. Re:Uh, oh by ttldkns · · Score: 2, Informative

    its not, thats an advert quite cleverly designed to liik like the rest of the site. The links are all ad.doubleclick.net and the blurb is all about windows being better.

    slashdot even has MS adverts, they are just everywhere. and where better to put them? trying to scare inquisitive new users away.

    --
    How many computers are too many?
  6. Samba's great by Stevyn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It can be a pain to set up at first because you have to deal with config files, but once it's set up, it Just Works (TM).

    My little network at my apartment has two windows machines (roommates), my linux machine, and the xbox with XBMC. I can share movies and music across the network and it always works. The xbox and the windows machines can always see shared directories.

    On the other hand, SMB on the windows xp and windows 98SE only works some of the time. I can always count on mine working though.

    Good job, samba team!

    1. Re:Samba's great by BHearsum · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My issue is that MacOSX apps aren't useful with anything but other MacOSX apps. Details about them are not disclosed, and they use propriatary formats for everything. Two examples:

      1) I needed to read some iChat logs on my Linux machine, there is absolutely *no* app out there that's not OSX specific (why the fuck do you code a log parser in *Aqua*, it's fucking text, jesus), nor could I find any details about the log format (it's binary for christ sake!) so I could whip up a perl script.

      2) As a result of that I *did* manage to find an app that claimed to run on all POSIX complaint systems that would parse iChat logs -- but it was packaged in .dmg. So I went on a hunt for a dmg decompressor. After a lot of searching I find something that would mount them as a filesystem, unfortunately the app was also coded for Aqua. Sad.

      I ended up using cat file.chat | strings to read them, which was extremely ugly.

  7. Re:Samba 4 Reaches "Susan" Stage???? by LEgregius · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you had RTFA, you would realize that it mean that the head developer, Tridge, who started the whole samba thing years ago, go to the place where his wife, Susan, is testing it at home. She has apparently been a tester for ever major release, and she apparently encouraged him to started the Samba project to begin with.

  8. Call me when by mboverload · · Score: 4, Funny

    Call me when it gets to the Pamela Anderson stage.

  9. Why a rewrite? by benjamindees · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For those who don't follow too closely, what necessitated a rewrite of Samba 3 and/or what gains are to be expected?

    --
    "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    1. Re:Why a rewrite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Some of the code base was getting hard to maintain. Fugly so to speak.

    2. Re:Why a rewrite? by Anthony+Liguori · · Score: 5, Informative

      Samba3 is a mess. All the RPC code is hand-written, the SMB parsing logic is all over the place.

      Samba4 automates the generate of most of the RPC code (the numbers change frequently, but it's something like 3,000 lines of IDL now replaces 100,000 lines of handcoded C).

      Plus, Samba3 took the approach of just doing enough of the protocol so that it worked. You'd see a lot of mysterious += 8 where you'd just skip over chunks of the packet. In Samba4, every field is understand and accounted for.

      Samba3 never could have been written as Samba4. Noone knew enough about SMB to understand that Samba4 was needed. This is really just Samba4 growing up.

      The biggest user-visible change is going to be better Active Directory support. Active Directory support in Samba3 is painful. Very painful. If Samba4 does get it's own LDAP server, you may seem some extremely good interop in Samba4.

    3. Re:Why a rewrite? by lkcl · · Score: 2


      All the RPC code is hand-written

      that is my fault: i started that technique.

      it was better to do it that way at the time because FreeDCE was not available, and even if it was, FreeDCE would have needed quite a lot of additional SKILLED work on it to make it possible to use (http://sf.net/projects/freedce).

      and yet more work to make it production-ready.

      so basically, SEVERAL learning curves had to be breached before anyone could start using (or developing) proper tools for the job.

      people forget that samba is actually now about TWENTY FIVE separate protocols / APIs, about five of which are implemented in one program (nmbd), about TWENTY of which are implemented or used in smbd.

  10. I am Impressed! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    They actually made a full implementation of AD Controller (a very difficult thing to do).

    This is really a major acheivement.

    Kudos to the Samba Development

  11. And right next to the article by gatesh8r · · Score: 2, Interesting

    An ad called the "Linux Resource Center: Sponsored by Microsoft". The irony.

    --
    Karma whorin' since 1999
  12. anybody remembering the Samba/Samba TNG Fork? by legrimpeur · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So basically the Samba team is doing what they believed was too ambtious in 2000, thus leading to the forked Samba - TNG project. Am I correct?

    Judging from the results probably Tridgell & co. were right...

    1. Re:anybody remembering the Samba/Samba TNG Fork? by piquadratCH · · Score: 2, Insightful
      So basically the Samba team is doing what they believed was too ambtious in 2000, thus leading to the forked Samba - TNG project. Am I correct?

      They had a little help...

      SCNR ;)

  13. Re:susan ? by nsayer · · Score: 3, Funny

    To this day my wife gives me a look when I tell her I need to work on AMANDA.

  14. Re:susan ? by DrSkwid · · Score: 2, Funny

    no because my partner is an adult

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  15. non-POSIX backends? by Skiron · · Score: 3, Informative

    I presume this something to do with some Windows functionality?

    I remember reading Andrew Tridgell's comments in 'The Rebel Code' by Glyn Moody - "...And we try to remain bug-for-bug compatible where it makes sense. There are some cases where it doesn't make sense, and their [MS] bugs are just ridiculous, and you shouldn't emulate them. But in most cases, we emulate the bugs so that we interoperate completely with the Microsoft implementation."

    1. Re:non-POSIX backends? by Anthony+Liguori · · Score: 3, Informative

      non-POSIX backends generally refer to backends that sit on storage devices or something like that. The idea is that Window's has a richer file-system model than POSIX (yeah, believe or not, some things are actually designed better in Windows).

      Some non-POSIX storage devices (like for instance, IBM's Storage Tank) have more sophisticated features like snap-shotting that Windows also supports. The idea is to let those features be exposed to Windows clients instead of limiting the feature-set to those that are mappable to POSIX.

  16. Easy to install? by DoktorTomoe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ever tried to add some Redhat servers to a windows domain with user-account given automagically by Active Directory? Tried for 2 days, gave up...

    I certainly hope the configuration is more userfriendly now.

    --
    Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
  17. Quick remote file ops? by Jeremi · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Any chance that Samba4 will have quick/intelligent remote file operations? By this I mean that I could do the following:
    1. Mount remote-share-drive-A, open A's shared folder as a window in KDE
    2. Mount remote-share-drive-B, open B's shared folder as a window in KDE
    3. Drag the icon for a 1GB file from A's window to B's window
    4. Have the file's data be copied directly from remote-drive-A to remote-drive-B, instead of having it all go (from drive A, over the network, to my client machine, then back over the network again, to drive B)... (which as you can imagine takes forever!)
    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    1. Re:Quick remote file ops? by Vancorps · · Score: 4, Informative
      There is a rather fundimental flaw in your request that Windows could not allow unless it was between two domain controllers. Every resource has its own session key. You would not have the permissions to create a new session key on your remote server since only system and krtg are allowed to do such things.

      My solution is to either use ssh and copy the file from the box, or if the two servers/shares are Windows I use AnalogX TS Drop Copy which does exactly what you ask for.

    2. Re:Quick remote file ops? by Anthony+Liguori · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, there is a CopyFile SMB. If it's there, Samba4 supports it. However, the burden really falls to the client here. It depends on how smart KDE would be in using the appropriate SMB's. Samba4's client libraries are much richer than Samba3's so the ability to do this would be exposed to them.

      So, the short answer is yes, but it would require a much more sophisticated client than what you presently see today.

  18. Thanks for the roadmap, Samba guys! by teamhasnoi · · Score: 4, Funny
    I've already given coders the order to embrace this improved version for inclusion into Longhorn.

    I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks for working so hard on this.

    Thanks again!
    Bill Gates

  19. Fix LDAP first... by illumin8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It would be nice if they actually fixed their LDAP code so that it would work with any directory server other than OpenLDAP. The fact of the matter is, I spent the last month trying to get PDC functionality to work with iPlanet Directory Server, and even Netscape Directory Server, which coincidentally Redhat just purchased, and the buggy Samba implementation of LDAP as a storage mechanism for account information just doesn't work with anything other than OpenLDAP. Users on a Windows XP workstation can't authenticate, and sometimes they can authenticate by the XP client gets a BSOD right after authenticating. It's bizzare, it's actually as if Samba is sending the XP client a buffer overflow while authenticating. If someone can prove me wrong I would be happy to hear it.

    I spent weeks working with RHEL technical support, and even had one of the Redhat support techs rebuild my environment, and sure enough, his users can't authenticate either (and experience the same BSOD).

    I'd love to be able to replace my entire Windows NT 4 domain with Samba running on Linux, but until Samba can actually provide a backup domain controller functionality that works with our existing LDAP infrastructure, I'm sorry, but Samba is not ready for prime-time. Having a single point of failure in your Samba PDC is not acceptable for enterprise use.

    Can you believe the only workable enterprise-level solution for Samba is to make the Samba server a domain member of an Active Directory domain? And then you still have to purchase Windows Client Access Licenses (CALs) for all of your workstations, saving you $0!!! (Not to mention your RHEL license and support fees which are more expensive than Windows 2003 Server)....

    Fucking ridiculous... If I sound a little pissed off it's because I wasted a month of my time trying to get this buggy software to work properly and even Redhat enterprise support just threw up their hands and said: Sorry, it's not supported and doesn't work.

    --
    "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
    1. Re:Fix LDAP first... by ink · · Score: 4, Interesting
      BTW, does Windows Server support any LDAP back-end that is not Microsoft's Active directory?

      Shhhhhh. Microsoft doesn't have to work with 3rd parties; the 3rd parties are responsible for reverse-engineering Windows and working perfectly with every possible combination that an end user may choose. And, god forbid anyone track down the bugs with iPlanet and fix them... it's much more efficient to complain about it on Slashdot.

      FWIW, we have PDC/BDC witih Samba3; and we previously used a 'hot standby' Samba2 server in a PDC/coldPDC configuration. Samba is incredible; we love it. We're even using <gasp> OpenLDAP with Samba3 right now. It plugs in with Squirrelmail, Courier, Exim, Apache, Tomcat, Coldfusion, and a buch of custom applications. Oh, and I also wrote a Samba-to-fax gateway that doesn't require any Windows programs to work (and works from any OS). It's a verah niiice.

      --
      The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
    2. Re:Fix LDAP first... by nfsilkey · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm sorry, but Samba is not ready for prime-time. Having a single point of failure in your Samba PDC is not acceptable for enterprise use.

      Well, if you looked a bit deeper into FMSO roles and AD, you would see that Windows has a glaring SPOF also. Youre box responsible for the Global Catalog is NOT the one you dont want to lose.

    3. Re:Fix LDAP first... by Anthony+Liguori · · Score: 5, Informative

      It would be nice if they actually fixed their LDAP code so that it would work with any directory server other than OpenLDAP.

      It does. We routinely run it with IBM Directory Server.

      and the buggy Samba implementation of LDAP as a storage mechanism for account information just doesn't work with anything other than OpenLDAP.

      Were you linking against iPlanet LDAP libs or OpenLDAP libs? It's quite possible that you're linking against the OpenLDAP libs and that they're not getting along with iPlanet.

      Samba only uses the standard LDAP calls. Other than the schema extensions (which unfortunately aren't in a standardized format) there's no LDAP-platform dependence.

      It's bizzare, it's actually as if Samba is sending the XP client a buffer overflow while authenticating.

      Why haven't you submitted this as a bug report at samba.org?

      I spent weeks working with RHEL technical support,

      Grab the latest from samba.org. The RHEL packages are sometimes quite old.

      I'm sorry, but Samba is not ready for prime-time.

      It's good that you made this decision for the world. Since noone's actually using Samba in production environments right now.

      Look, Samba's used in a lot of enterprise environments. You're experience isn't the norm. You're environment also isn't the norm. Not many folks use iPlanet. Netscape's DS is also considered one of the lesser LDAP servers out there.

      If this is a reproducable bug, and of the severity you describe, and is still present in the latest version of Samba, it's certainly be a high priority fix.

      Keep in mind though, we don't do a lot of testing with things like iPlanet because we don't have access to copies of it. OpenLDAP and IDS get a lot of testing with Samba because people who work on Samba have ready access to it.

      What's more, I don't see a single way in which any kind of LDAP failure could result in Samba sending an incorrect packet (with an incorrectly sized buffer) to a Windows client.

      Bugzilla is your friend.

    4. Re:Fix LDAP first... by illumin8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Were you linking against iPlanet LDAP libs or OpenLDAP libs? It's quite possible that you're linking against the OpenLDAP libs and that they're not getting along with iPlanet.

      Samba only uses the standard LDAP calls. Other than the schema extensions (which unfortunately aren't in a standardized format) there's no LDAP-platform dependence.

      Well, you see, that's the problem... Management refuses to let me implement a solution that's not supported, and as soon as I go and compile Samba custom, I lose the ability to call Redhat for support. Also, Redhat doesn't support use of any LDAP server other than OpenLDAP, which really screws us, although I'm told this might change with RHEL 4, especially since Redhat just acquired Netscape Directory Server.

      Even the Samba team has realized that OpenLDAP sucks and has started writing their own LDAP implementation for Samba 4 (look in the roadmap, you'll see it's in there, but not yet started or written yet).

      Perhaps IBM Directory Server is the way to go... it sounds like you're getting good use out of it... My only problem is that we're mostly a Sun shop and Sun bundles iPlanet Directory Server free with Solaris (up to 200,000 entries), which makes the price right.

      Also, did you have to compile Samba with IBM's LDAP libraries to make it work properly?

      Again, I run into the problem of management wanting a single throat to choke if the system goes belly up and dies on us. It's really difficult, but every solution in our company has to be built with standard off-the-shelf components or else management won't green-light it. I think this is typical in the corporate world though. The thing is, I might be an uber-hacker and able to compile Samba and link three or four custom libraries into it, but suppose I quit and the next admin they bring in is a point-and-click Windows admin who doesn't know how to compile software? They want him to be able to support it, so I'm screwed.

      In regards to your other question:

      Why haven't you submitted this as a bug report at samba.org?

      Because I know they'd probably throw it back in my face and say it's unreproduceable since who wants to install Iplanet Directory Server and set up a whole PDC + Windows XP client just to reproduce the bug? Also, if it turns out the problem is Samba was built linked against the OpenLDAP libs instead of iPlanet libs then it is considered a "configuration issue" anyway and is not their problem (even though MS should probably have a look at it, since XP shouldn't be blue-screening like that, no matter what packet a PDC sends it).

      BTW, thanks for the info, you've given me some valuable help for 6 months or so down the road when I decide to give this project a second shot.

      For now, our solution is probably going to be "roll OpenLDAP, keep it separate from the Unix LDAP (iPlanet on Solaris), and just maintain two separate directories..." (ugh... the Holy Grail of Single Sign On eludes us once again...)

      --
      "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
    5. Re:Fix LDAP first... by runenfool · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Samba 3 does work with whatever Sun is calling their directory these days (I get confused ;) ). Ive got it running myself actually, as a PDC. Granted, the directory is on the same box as the samba software, which is admittedly different than what you have (for one Im not even using Linux in this case) - but it works.

      On the other hand I will tell you that its just easier to get it working with OpenLDAP because thats what they test with. Using the Sun directory on Solaris/SPARC is quite a bit harder to set up than OpenLDAP on Linux x86.

      Id be happy to help with specific questions or errors if I can, but the point of this post is pretty much to let the slashdot world know that *yes*, it does work with other directories (specifically Sun - since someone already mentioned the IBM variant). Im not the only one who has it working, even if it was a pain to get it there.

      Now if Sun would just drop their PC interoperability product and just move to Samba (do what Apple has done - integrate it - dont make your users do it) I'd be a lot happier. I can set up an Apple or Linux-OpenLDAP Samba PDC much faster than a Solaris-iPlanet one.

    6. Re:Fix LDAP first... by vegetasaiyajin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am not asking if there are other LDAP server available for windows. Of course there are.

      My question is if Windows Server's SMB/CIFS implementation supports LDAP backends different than ActiveDirectory. It's an honest question. I don't know if it does.

      --

      My heart is pure, but make no mistake, it's pure evil
  20. Re:Thanks Samba Team by Vancorps · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Samba has been my savior on many occasions because of the damn Macs. They don't just handle remote file-systems very well. They never release a file they open. The G5s at my work I often have to boot off because other users are unable to move files around which is part of our workflow process currently so its quite annoying. Samba fixes the problem by acting as my proxy. It talks very nicely to all major network platforms. They've done some nice work this far, Samba 4 looks even more promising.

  21. Implementing Microsoft "Standards" by spencerogden · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What is truly amazing about the Samba project is their consistent ability to emulate MS screw up, go "buf for bug" is the term I think is used. To implement something like Active Directory, bugs and, which included 4 or 5 different standard (but not quite) services is amazing. Just look at the problems with write support for NTFS. I don't know if its intentional, but MS products are not exactly easy to reverse engineer. Thanks, release us from the horror that is AD on XP!

    --

    Spencer Ogden

    1. Re:Implementing Microsoft "Standards" by JohnnyKlunk · · Score: 4, Interesting

      OK, I know it's popular to bash MS here, but precisely what is the the horror that is AD on XP? Like MS or not if you've got x thousand users needing shared file/print resources across multiple servers / sites then AD with XP does a pretty reasonable job. It's easy to administer, easy for users to understand and the flexibility of clever combinations of site / ou / group based policies give a level of intuitive usability that very little else will provide.

      Bash MS all you like. I dont like alot of their stuff either, just give some evidence for the stuff you dislike and admit to the stuff they do well.

  22. Risky guy! by Lispy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    FTA: "Samba4 reached an important milestone tonight, as I installed it for my wife to use as her file server for all of her important documents, email, the book she is working on etc."

    Ok, there are two rules I follow:
    1. Never touch a running system.
    but even more importantly:
    2. Never touch the running system of your girlfriend/wife.

    I did that a few weeks ago and upgraded her machine. Due to bad luck I bought a faulty RAM module and "thought" I had double checked it. Well, long story short, I got her machine ready in time for her finals but I went through a lot of absolutely unnecessery trouble. Ok, now she's happy and all but I nearly failed it. I would never ever try my development code on her productive box.

  23. Why promote a standard that encourages MS lockin? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would prefer to see NDS implementations and Novell server integrations than to give MS the fuel to convince IT that Windows is the way to go since Unix only works with AD.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  24. Re:susan ? by Lispy · · Score: 2, Funny

    even worse: My exgirlfriends name is Susann, and I am actively deploying a Samba Server next week.

    I guess I'd better stick with Samba3 or else my girl thinks I am out latin-dancing with my exgirlfriend...

  25. Not sure why this is in the `Linux' category ... by dougmc · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I'm not quite sure why this story is in the Linux Slashdot category. Yes, the story is on Linux Today, but Samba runs on pretty much any *nix platform. (It wouldn't even surprise me if it ran on win32 under cygwin. That would be a bit wierd, but ...)

    The BSD and Apple categories would be just as appropriate. Perhaps Slashdot needs a *nix category ...

  26. DIY external hard drive with cwrsync to backup by Linuxathome · · Score: 2, Insightful
    cwrsync is so cool. I use it regularly with my hard drive mp3 player to sync up and backup everytime I go from work to home. Personally, I think those Maxtor external hard drives with "one touch backup" aren't as useful as a do it yourself homemade external hard drive and cwrsync setup with a one-click backup icon on the desktop. With my Windows XP, I have a batch file on the desktop with the command:
    C:\Progra~1\cwrsync\rsync -a -v --progress "/cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings/My Name.NAM-LAPTOP/My Documents" "/cygdrive/f"
    Everytime I want to backup to the external hard drive (my mp3 player). I just plug it in and double click the batch file. Rsync'ed and good to go home!

    --
    Linux at home
  27. several additional daemons by lkcl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    yes - i wanted to introduce several stand-alone daemons, for several reasons:

    1) project manageability.

    you tell people that samba is 350,000 lines of code and they freak out. you tell them that they can work on say writing a special samr daemon (e.g. a sql db one) which would be oh about 30-50k lines, and they start to calm down a bit.

    2) clear delineation and separation of code at logical boundaries.

    the complexity of the samba project was getting out of hand, and it is still out-of-hand.

    by introducing separate services, which almost every other implementor of NT-compatible servers have done, you don't end up feeling like you've swallowed a tiger. ... would anyone DREAM of merging postfix, cyrus, nntpd and apache into a single daemon??

    3) commercial and other-licensed-projects can interoperate.

    sun microsystems would never have bothered to license AT&T's AFPS code [NT 3.5 ported to SysV by microsoft - badly - and bought by AT&T].

    or, at least, if they had, they would have chucked away the file-server part of it, and used smbd as the file server, whilst still using the NT-based services from NT 3.5-ported-to-unix!

    and they would have used the published interfaces - the ones used to communicate with the external DCE/RPC services.

    the reasons i was quoted AGAINST doing separate services were that a) it would be several milliseconds too slow (which is a rubbish argument on a network-based protocol) and b) unix domain sockets cannot be used securely (which, given that they are used in winbind is again rubbish)

    no, the real reasons why samba was not turned into separate daemons was a) so that samba could be used to maintain control as a single GPL project b) because i was the one advocating it c) the level of complexity was not understood and i failed to explain it clearly enough.

    1. Re:several additional daemons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So, you had better ideas and better code but, your fork died and the original branch continued.

      Your fork died because the original branch refused to merge your "superior" code and concepts? Come on, who's kidding who?

      SAMBA did not force you to abandon your fork. You could have continued with the SAMBA TNG fork. Had you produced superior concepts and code, as you claimed to have, I doubt that the community would continue to use the original "inferior" branch.

    2. Re:several additional daemons by lkcl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      samba tng is still going: i don't actively work on it but elrond does.

      samba tng was, and still is, capable of acting as a PDC for thousands - yes, thousands - of users.

      samba tng is the only PDC that doesn't fall over when a few hundred students all simultaneously log in at once.

      i stopped working on samba tng because it was too distressing.

      and you know just as well as i do that better ideas are useless when there is a monopoly power already in place.

    3. Re:several additional daemons by theTerribleRobbo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      and you know just as well as i do that better ideas are useless when there is a monopoly power already in place.

      Just like Samba was useless when Microsoft held the monopoly on SMB implementations?

  28. Re:Why promote a standard that encourages MS locki by sethadam1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, first off, eDirectory which replaces NDS already runs in a Linux environment. Secondly, Samba is an implementation of SMB, which is what Microsoft uses. Samba would not seek to replace Novell servers, because they don't work using SMB (aka CIFS).

  29. Re: XAD by lkcl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    XAD is very interesting, and it works, yet is ... lacking in key areas that would aid in migration.

    you can make a XAD server be a member of an NT-controlled forest, but the replication protocol is itself a beast-and-a-half, such that it is not yet possible for a XAD server to replicate and then "take over" an NT server.

    which is a pity.

    also, lukeh has modified a number of open source projects to allow "plugin" components to be added, such that he can out-source to his own components.

    the source code for these plugin methods _is_ available - ironically, the one for samba does pretty much EXACTLY what i do for samba tng - outsource the DCE/RPC traffic - yet unfortunately, XAD itself, the core of it, perhaps unsurprisingly, is proprietary.

  30. Stages by thomasj · · Score: 3, Funny
    So these are the stages of Samba versions:
    • Andrew: There is a branch tag. Some lines of code has been written, and it can print the word "Samba" in a log file
    • Susan: Core things work. That is, you can see a share folder, and when MS-Word crashes, it is not clear, if it is the Samba pile that caused it
    • Alpha: Susan threw it out! Andrew is now pestering his paying customers to use it. Status is: what works, works. Features are missing (like reading from files)
    • Beta: Paying customers threw it out! Andrew is seeking the Linux distributors to try it out.
    • Distro: Some advanced stuff doesn't come out right. The distributors release it anyhow in the hope that some geek will fix it.
    • Limbo: The geek fixed it and made an obscure backdoor. He is now using your host for compiling his kernel
    • Retro: Most people revert to an earlier version, with a better backdoor. The geek has now a nextdoor neighbor geek to compile X on the host
    • Fiasco: Well, yeah. Your drop Windows service.
    Sorry, got a bit carried away...
    --
    :-) = I am happy
    :^) = I am happy with my big nose
    C:\> = I am happy with my OS
  31. Re:TFA says; by leonbrooks · · Score: 2, Interesting
    she is the wife of one of the developers
    A gentle, polite and helpful one, as well. And they have an excellent wooden frog, plus top-quality coffee facilities for those who are into chemically abusing their kidneys. But I digress. (-:

    Tridge wrote the core of Samba4 in about a day of coding spread over about a day and a half elapsed. That blew my mind. He did have a clear idea of what he was going to do when he started, but nevertheless it's startling to watch. He also wrote the core to have unprecedented flexibility, so it's going to be just as interesting to see what some of the other Samba geniuses do with it now that it's airborne (just).

    It's also going to be interesting to see if naming his test tool "smbtorture" this time around (instead of "smbclient") is going to prevent people coming to rely upon it for day-to-day administration. (-:
    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  32. AD requires you to know what you are doing by DragonHawk · · Score: 2, Informative

    "My experience is with AD in small networks, where the usesrs want something simple like central passwords and roaming profiles."

    Yah, that's generally what we use it for, too. (I work for an IT systems integrator.)

    "... there have been nothing but problems. Slow logons, the server requires rebooting ..."

    Dollars to donuts, your DNS configuration is wrong. For most small networks, this usually boils down to: "You need to make sure the one and only resolving DNS server mentioned anywhere in your configuration is your Active Directory Domain Controller". Along that same line: "Never mention your ISP's DNS servers anywhere!" (This is a tremendous over-simplication, but it will do for Slashdot. Reply if you really want to know the details.)

    A lot of people are still used to NT4. There wasn't much you could do to mis-configure NT4. Sure, it might not work in the first place, but it was always due to Microsoft bugs and limitations and there wasn't anything you could do about it. If it could be done with NT4 "out of the box", it was generally pretty easy to do.

    Contrast that with Windows 2000 and Active Directory. Suddenly, DNS, DHCP, dynamic DNS updates, DNS record types, DNS SRV records, LDAP, and Kerberos all get involved. Your DNS infrastructure has to correct or Active Directory will blow chunks. You cannot get by without reading the manual. That is a stark constrast to NT4.

    "... and user management is a pain."

    This strikes me as odd. If anything, I find user management much easier in AD vs NT4. What makes you say it is a pain? Maybe I can offer some advice.

    FYI and FWIW, we also frequently deploy Samba in NT4 PDC emulation mode, and find it works very well at that. Centralized security database, roaming profiles, etc. I just miss Active Directory Group Policy.

    --

    dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
    I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
  33. Andrew Tridgell's side of the story by DragonHawk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is the link M. Coward posted, but fixed, plus my +2 score so more will see it. (Sorry M. Coward, but then, I figure if you're Anonymous, you're not worried about credit or karma.)

    http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/200 2-January/018388.html

    I don't know the people or the situation enough to judge either one, but I figure it is good to see both sides. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in the middle, but I say that onlly because it usually is.

    --

    dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
    I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
  34. Getting Windows to see other Windows well by DragonHawk · · Score: 3, Informative

    If I'm in a good mood and I want to become angry, all I have to do is click on Network Neighborhood, and I go from happy to pissed off in no time flat. First of all, it practically locks up the entire computer while it SEARCHES for network shares.

    In the default configuration, that is pretty common. If you are interested, I can explain how to make it work well.

    1. Create a WINS server (NetBIOS name server). Point all your SMB/CIFS clients to the WINS server.

    2. Set your NetBIOS Node type to 2 (P-node, or Peer Node -- WINS resolution only).

    3. Disable the NetBIOS computer browser service on all but a handful of "reliable server" machines.

    To disable the NetBIOS browser on NT, disable the "Computer Browser" service.

    On Win 95/98/ME, set the "Master Browser" option to "No" instead of "Auto" in the "Windows File and Printer Sharing" component in Network properties. (I might have the names wrong; I don't use 9X much anymore, and I don't have one handy to check.)

    I usually recommend disabling the browser service on all computers expect for domain controller(s). If you do not have a domain, disable said service on all but one or two of your servers. If you do not have any servers, you're hosed, regardless of protocol. Designate a computer "the server" to fix things.

    Once this is done, Windows name resolution works pretty well.

    --

    dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
    I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
  35. Re:Not sure why this is in the `Linux' category .. by dougmc · · Score: 2, Informative
    It would seem less weird when you consider that you have to pay for client licenses for connections to NT/2000/XP/2003 machines (gory details here. Microsoft refuses to allow more than 10 SMB connections to Win2000 Pro because "it wasn't designed for it" or some such. So Samba on Win32 would make sense, if you were a Windows user who a.) wanted to save money and b.) wanted to allow a lot of other Windows users to connect to his machine.
    I considered that, but there's a catch -- the Windows licenses only allow ten connections whether you're using Microsoft servers or not. So, yes, using Samba on Windows 2000 Pro may let you bypass that restriction as imposed by W2K Pro, but it's still not `legal'.

    This has come up before with web servers -- Microsoft got on Orielly's case because Orielly's web server allowed as many connections as the machine could handle, and didn't restrict it to 10 even if the machine wasn't licensed for it. (This was at least 10 years ago, so maybe my memory is sketchy. I had a friend who was working at Orielly at the time and he was fussing about this ...)

    I don't think Orielly gave in, and I'm sure this has come up again and again with every web server, ftp server, mail server, etc. that runs under Windows. But Microsoft can't really enforce it, so ...