[olug] Samba rant and request for feedback

[dbw]

Concerning Samba.

I am using Samba as 1)pdc for an NT network -w- all clients being 
NT Workstation 4.0 and 2) office file server 3) NT user authentication 
to the NT domain (which is Samba).

Both at home and at work I am using a Linux Samba driven network 
server in very similar ways.  The primary difference is that the 
number of users on my company’s home office LAN is greater (10 or 
more during a given work day) than the users on my home network (my 
wife and I, and sometimes a third computer when we have a guest over 
for Quake).

Getting right to the point, I haven’t really had any problems on 
my home LAN using Samba.  It works great and is a much better value 
as compared to buying a licensed copy of NT server for use at my 
home.  At home all the client pc’s are either Linux or win98 and 
I use NT domain authentication.  My wife and I are reasonably careful 
that we always log off properly and the setup-using Samba seems reasonably 
trouble free.  I have had this arrangement for nearly two years now 
using Slackware and Redhat and two different versions of Samba.

The office is an entirely different matter.  Nothing but trouble! 
I thought that Samba worked so great on my home LAN that it would 
be a blessing at work.  The idea of getting rid of NT server and 
working in an environment I enjoyed, ie Linux, would complement that 
which I read about Samba being far more stable and easier to manage 
compared to an NT domain server.  

At least one office user’s profile is corrupted a week.  Usually 
because that individual did not log off properly or something, but 
still it seems quite fragile.  

Using ‘create mask = 0777’ for example, at home, works fine,  On 
the office LAN files are created so that the group permission do 
now allow write access.  So when one of the office staff tries to 
modify a file created on the public drive by another member of the 
office staff, they cannot save.  There are no directory redundancies 
or syntactical errors to explain this behavior.  All users are members 
of the ‘user’ group. Because my configuration at the office so closely 
resembles the configuration at home, there should not be a problem;
given that it has always worked fine at home.

Today for no apparent reason the Samba box will not allow half of 
my office users to log in.  Files that appear on the file system 
under the Linux server itself are invisible to the network neighborhood 
browser on the winNT workstations.  When Shari and Jamie log in all 
of their desktop icons are missing and they cannot access msie.  
Yet Tanya’s login and desktop is fine.  Keeping in mind that no one 
touches this server and that it is in a secure area + is not on the 
Internet at all to be exploited, I can find no reasonable explanation 
for all of these problems that have continuously plagued my office 
installation of a Samba file server.  After all, I went with Samba 
over NT because I have so little free time to baby-sit these servers,
I wanted something closer to the idealistic “maintenance free” concept.


I’m a big advocate of Samba and I understand quite well the server 
message block protocol from my days as a MS NT network admin at Inacom.
I want to prove to all of my old NT zealot colleagues that Linux 
can do the same thing and do it better thanks to free and open source 
technologies like Samba, but right now I am pulling my hair out and 
I have an office full of people that are ready to throw me under 
a bus and run over me.

Other than being a rant, I am interested in hearing feedback from 
people that ARE using Samba in a WORK / COMMERCIAL environment to 
serve office staff of no fewer than 10 people.  Also, it would be 
additionally interesting to hear that it is being used as a pdc for 
an NT domain and NT network user authentication.  I am interested 
in knowing how well it is working for “you” and how many problems 
you are having.

My overall analysis will help me to decide if I want to keep going 
with Samba or go back to NT server 4.0 sp6a blah blah, which I really 
hate even thinking about. :o) But d at mn I am so frustrated right now,
and the thought of having to go into work tomorrow during this icy 
crap when I could have otherwise worked from home further frustrated 
me with Samba.

There may be things that I am overlooking or doing incorrectly.  
However, and no offence to anyone, they won’t be third grade level 
- easy to point out mistakes but there might be something concerning 
the use of the Samba box as a primary NT domain controller or something 
that I am.  I know that there are a lot of brilliant individuals 
in this group, so I am eager to receive feedback.

Also, I have so little time to continue to baby-sit this project.
Anyone that is thoroughly familiar with Samba and server message 
block; if you would please contract me if you are interested in doing 
some contract work in Lincoln. Basically, getting this thing up and 
running once and for all and/or pointing out to me what I am missing 
I would very much appreciate hearing from you.  I don’t simply want 
to re-install and start from scratch, I want to learn what I am possibly 
doing wrong OR conclude once and for all that *gasp* Samba is too 
immature in its development at this time to serve my needs.

My samba is version 2.0.6 : and yes I do plan to upgrade to the latest 
to see if that fixes my problem.  I have no Win2000 pc’s on my LAN 
at this time nor do I have any plans to in the near future.  Maybe 
the upgrade is all I need to do, what do you think?

-end of rant-

-Derek

ps: Adam at AIM who spoke after Jason during the OLUG meeting, I 
lost your b-card, could you please email me your name and contact 
information.  Thank you!



______   __   _    ________________________________________
_____   / /  (_)__  __ ____  __                         ___
____   / /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /   commando at robotz.com   ___
___   /____/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\   _________________________









---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: olug-unsubscribe at bstc.net
For additional commands, e-mail: olug-help at bstc.net