As far as Win95 porting, there is nothing to do. Samba just makes a Unix
box look like any networked PC fileserver. The client does not do any more
or less caching then if it was attaching to a windows for workgroups
fileserver. Any cacheing (since it shows local and NFS files also, not
just AFS and DFS) is done on the Unix fileserver which acts as a
translator.
Samba does not have the advantge of local client cacheing, but because it
only needs to be installed on the server, it is alot eaiser to maintain.
Also the PC users do not need to be trained to learn something new. The
Unix boxes and printers just show up like the rest of the networked
devices. And if you do not have an endless budget it is vastly cheaper.
I would think it prudent to look at Samba to see if it meets your needs
before spending money on another product. Mind you I have nothing to do
with Samba, I am just a satisfied customer. I looked at the Locus'
product, but at three times the cost of PCNFS (University discounting
applied), and with thousands of PC's at Maryland, the choice is obvious.
For a small or rich site, the client caching solution is a nice win, though.
BTW, I neglected to give the location of SAMBA the last time. The main
location is maintained by [EMAIL PROTECTED] at;
ftp://nimbus.anu.edu.au/pub/tridge/samba
Mirror sites include:
ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/samba
ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/unix/samba
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Network/Samba/
ftp://ftp.choc.apana.org.au/pub/samba
Randall
On Tue, 24 Oct 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Mike Comer did a simple experiment with Samba on NT when I
> was in his office to see if it caches pages locally (i.e.,
> uses the NT FS cache or the equivalent). It doesn't. I'm not
> sure if this applies to Win95, but if it does, it would appear
> that a Samba porting solution would be quite limited; the
> utility of AFS will diminish as you add clients since each
> client would be making RPCs for every file access.
>
>
> "Randall S. Winchester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > And if you want an easy free solution, look at Samba;
> > WHAT CAN SAMBA DO?
> > ==================
> >
> > Here is a very short list of what samba includes, and what it does
> >
> > - a SMB server, to provide LanManager style file and print services to PCs
> >
> > - a Netbios (rfc1001/1002) nameserver
> >
> > - a ftp-like SMB client so you can access PC resources (disks and
> > printers) from unix
> >
> > - a tar extension to the client for backing up PCs
> >
> > Samba has support for both AFS and DCE/DFS authentication. It works very
> > well and the best thing is that you do not need to add anything to the PC!
> >
> > Randall
>
