On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Paul Lussier wrote:
> I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant. Both Ben and I were referring to
> the use of SMB as *server* running on a Linux box to server Windows
> *clients*.
>
> To share filesystems between Linux systems, use NFS.
>
> Ben, please correct me if I'm mistaken wrt your intentions here.
Yes and no.
To share files from Linux to Linux, I've used both NFS and SMB. Both have
their advantages and disadvantages.
I have found NFS is generally best when you have mostly (or exclusively)
Unix-like systems. If you have any non-Linux Unix systems (which generally
don't support SMB), or you have a multi-user Unix-like system, or you need to
preserve Unix eXecute bits, then NFS is the only way to go.
I have found SMB is generally best when you have a very hetergenous network.
For accessing plain old data files on a per-user basis, I prefer SMB, as it
can be authenticated and managed on a per-user basis. Personally, on Linux, I
have found SMB easier to debug than NFS, and found SMB's failure modes to be
less nasty than NFS. Lastly, SMB has an edge over NFS in terms of how well
the kernel code works: Linux's NFS support is notoriously wonky (although I
understand things have improved with recent kernels).
My biggest beefs with NFS are that failure modes have a tendency to wedge
things, and there is no concept of per-user authentication. My biggest beefs
with SMB are the crufty, semi-propriatary protocol, and no concept of per-host
authentication.
No, I'm never happy. That's my job. ;-)
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Net Technologies, Inc. <http://www.ntisys.com>
Voice: (800)905-3049 x18 Fax: (978)499-7839
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