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Samba: Less Important Because Windows Is Less Important
Jeremy Allison - Sam writes "Interview Bruce Byfield did with me after the Samba 4.0 release. Discusses interactions with Microsoft, the future of the code and project, and many other things."
Earlier today I read a man complaining to Slashdot that Linux only has two data sharing options "off" and "configure 400 settings." He was answerred with a post of "just use Samba."
And then, this.
Samba is a dance. Your confusing it with the term "Sambo" which is generally considered a racist term.
Samba is absolutely still important. We just take SAMBA for granted now more than ever because it is pre-installed everywhere in almost every appliance. For example buy a $20 internet 'router' from Best Buy that can share a connected USB drive over a LAN and it probably uses SAMBA for functionality.
I use Samba at home for my media file shares, and probably still would have even if Windows interoperability wasn't an issue, it's widely supported by most non-Windows OSes (except iOS, the first OS where you need to pay to add on a Samba client. Progress!)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So, integrating old machines running legacy systems with newer/different platform servers is less important?
Funny, I thought Sambo was a martial art. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_%28martial_art%29
And it still probably won't come with an offer for source code (sigh :-).
Jeremy.
Unsurprisingly... ;)
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=160570
Really makes Chrome devices a pain in the ass when it comes to network shares. :/
Back in the 80's, I used to meet up with friends at the local Sambo's Restaurant. However, to maintain Political Correctness, we always referred to it as "Jigaboo's".
It's funny - laugh.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the latest versions of the SMB protocol were a bit more asynchronous and high-performance. But using older versions, I found SMB (Samba on one end, CIFS on the other, in general), could not saturate a gigabit ethernet link, while NFS and AFP could. I kept using it because for compatibility but stuck with NFS or AFP for performance, AFP more now that Netatalk 3.x sucks so much less than Netatalk 2.x. (Netatalk 2.x suffered from various problems like random connection drops.)
Thinking that Samba is less important because "Windows is less important" is definitely off target. The obvious implication of the statement is that if Samba is less important then NFS is. I certainly am not aware of any trend there. CIFS and NFS both remain valid NAS protocols. To the extent that "Windows is less important" because PCs are less important then you are dealing with some serious trends in storage.
.
One trend is the growing use of virtual disks in VMs to provide storage. This is just stupidity. Shared files server users far better than virtual disks do. Files are not created for OSs, they are a mechanism for sharing information between users.
The other trend is away from NAS and towards object storage. That is a good trend, but not one that will make NAS protocols obsolete anytime soon.
Samba is a dance.
Yes. And when we let Microsoft lead, they keep stepping on everyone's toes. I'm going to a friend's office soon to find out why the addition of one stinking Windows 8 system has broken all the file sharing between her existing Vista, Windows 7 and XP systems.
Have gnu, will travel.
Samba is absolutely still important. We just take SAMBA for granted now more than ever because it is pre-installed everywhere in almost every appliance. For example buy a $20 internet 'router' from Best Buy that can share a connected USB drive over a LAN and it probably uses SAMBA for functionality.
Agreed.
Samba is not seen as a big issue these days because it works so incredibly well. Software only gets your attention when it fails.
As for Windows not being as important, that simply is not the case in corporate america. In fact the only reason Linux exists in the corporate world is because of Samba. Any growth if Linux in the server or workstation role is due principally to Samba, and without it there would be virtually zero Linux adaptation in the workplace. Businesses are natural mono-cultures when it comes to computing systems.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I had it in my career too. Back in the mid-90s, Linux was used sparingly in certain industries and Windows dominated the workplace. To survive, Linux systems did almost always have to play ball.
That balance *has* changed, but not quite that much, though perception of what is going on is very very contingent on career path. About 2003 or so, I was going from place to place with significant Linux footprint, but unavoidable Windows instances. As my experience progressed, opportunities that I pursued afforded me the chance to gravitate to nearly Linux exclusive businesses and organizations. If you are a top notch Linux developer, your reality will change so that Windows will not be a large role.
In relatively recent history, my career has had me participate in more wider sampling of companies with significantly complex IT organizations, despite my recent Linux-exclusive career. I realized that while *my* world had changed, the business world at large was still where it was about 7 years ago with respect to Windows footprint.
Particularly someone as renouned as Allison is likely to have his world changed for more than typical...
You say this while I've got a power point presentation open about our new "lets put everyone on Virtual machines and have them remote in via linux terminals!" Something I never thought I'd see. It's not going to happen tomorrow but we're never going to Windows 8 or above. That's relatively clear. Microsoft nailed their own coffin shut.
So you have never heard of webservers?
DNS? NTP? FTP?
All of those are commonly run on Linux. Businesses are not natural mono-cultures. Lots of businesses use many different computing systems and it has been that way since there were computing systems.
Strange, nearly 20 years and 10 companies as a Linux admin and Samba has always been a slight afterthought, rarely used. I always figured if it wasn't for exchange windows wouldn't even exist in the corporate world any more.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
In our office we have a 2 TB NAS for backing up desktops and posting files that need to be shared to the whole office. Guess what it runs? Linux + samba + a custom web interface. The fun thing about SAMBA these days is that a lot of people running it don't realize they are running it.
No, you're getting the history the wrong way around.
Samba was started in '92. The web wasn't on most companies radar until the late 90's.
Web and database on Linux came in the door opened by file servers :-).
Our original platform was SunOS (not even Solaris). When Samba started Linux was a toy, it didn't even have networking.
Jeremy.
It's also easier to set up than nfs4+kerberos!
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Give him a breakdown of licensing and support costs for the next 5 years. Windows Server gets pretty expensive when you start adding the client acces licenses in for all of the different products.
FLASH: Man with Linux colored classes sees only Linux machines.
Film at 11.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I thought Sambos turned into Denny's.
Like the tiger turned into butter?
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Once you get into bigger problems and more demanding SLAs, the prevalance of Windows declines rather quickly.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yup outlook/exchange. I've never understood what is so great a technical challenge in developing open solutions that replace these well but when something pops up it seems to focus on only one piece of this or it provides calendar and email but as separate pieces within the suite and not tying and integrating all the pieces together the way exchange does.
Who modded this down? Somebody mod this back up. The post was on-topic, succinct and to the point.
Oh sure. The mail slot interface is an essential part of the protocol. That's why you just can't buy Samba based products anymore, all commercial NAS are re-badged versions of Windows server.
Sarcasm, in case anyone was wondering..
Jeremy
No, I also know when it was first widely adopted. I was around and shepherded it through that remember. It really took off around 1994 when we had very wide use on SunOS and early Solaris use.
Wider Linux use really didn't start until about until 1996 or so. I remember tridge and I being amazed that making it work on Linux became more important than making it work on SunOS/Solaris/HPUX and other commercial UNIXes.
Jeremy.
Pretty much every Linux/Samba-based NAS on the market has the same policy limitations as a desktop Linux installation.
Plus, the mailslot interface is a very important part of the protocol. It's how networked users have been able to communicate with one another for quite a long time, without needing third-party software, which also provides an interface for applications to also do so across machines. The reason it was likely never fully implemented on Linux is because there is no reasonable way to implement it, given the lack of any kind of standardization (particularly in the GUI). Literally the only thing available, after 20 years, is Linpopup, which basically doesn't really even work anymore anyway. And there's no proper interface to take advantage of mailslot functionality to make anything better. RealPopup is a very good WinPopup replacement on Windows, with quite a bit of configurability, but it's completely unable to communicate with a Samba-based machine in its native mode.
So, what options does that leave us with? 1) A cross-platform internet-reliant instant messenger service, full of ads and spam and regular updates. 2) A local server-based chat application, requiring configuration of both a server and clients, and also requiring aforementioned server which severs all network communications if that machine is down. 3) Something Bonjour-based, all of which are typically extremely bloated and require installing garbage Apple software on a PC to communicate.
That means all of the Linux-based machines I use have no way of communicating with Windows users on the network, meaning I have to always have a Windows PC as well, because there is no reasonable alternative.
They're not going to do that. The director of Windows server development at Microsoft even gave us a quote for the Samba 4 press release.
https://www.samba.org/samba/news/releases/4.0.0.html
For the tl;dr crowd:
"Active Directory is a mainstay of enterprise IT environments, and Microsoft is committed to support for interoperability across platforms," said Thomas Pfenning, director of development, Windows Server. "We are pleased that the documentation and interoperability labs that Microsoft has provided have been key in the development of the Samba 4.0 Active Directory functionality."
Thanks a *lot* Thomas !
Exchange is currently a piece of shit too. There just isn't a non piece of shit alternative. If you just needed email and a directory there are much better less bloated and more efficient solutions but alas you don't just just need a directory and a mail server.
Jeremy,
Since you're hanging about, let me take the opportunity to say thanks for making such a vital, useful and wonderful piece of software - and thanks to the rest of the Samba team, too.
I've used it at work over the decades, I use it at home even now. It's made my life better. That is not at all hyperbole.
I know that this is Slashdot, but it wouldn't hurt to say thanks, right?
Cheers!