On 08/17/2009 04:25 PM, Henrik Dige Semark wrote:
Steve Litt skrev:
On Monday 17 August 2009 15:55:34 John Drescher wrote:
On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 3:52 PM, Eero Volotinen<[email protected]> wrote:
Steve Litt kirjoitti:
Hi all,

This isn't meant to be a troll. It's a legitimate question asked because
I haven't done much with Samba for 9 years.

Is there anything Samba can contribute to an all-Linux environment with
no Windows or Mac computers?
Well, atleast it is more secure than nfsv3 ?
That along with better performance and also better handling of
disconnections are a couple of reasons to use samba/cifs over nfs3.

How about performance and security of Samba vs. NFS4 on an all Linux network?
Samba is definitely more secure then NFS but performance wise it is definitely my expiration that NFS is much fasten with small files, but about the same on big files.

(I'm not trying to inflame on a thread that is not trying to troll, but...)

I'd like to see some backing that Samba is more secure than NFS -- I don't think that it's black-and-white enough for a blanket statement of that sort. I will certainly grant that many common configurations of NFS have security issues, but with the ability to run NFS in kerberized modes I would think that it has a very similar security model to Samba+ADS. And more secure than Samba with other security models like user or share, I believe. I don't think there is a significant difference in the quality of software (both Samba and NFS are well written pieces of code), but configurations can vary greatly.

Samba does provide some very useful functionality to an all Linux environment in that a user can take a stock linux box that knows nothing of your local network setups and connect to a Samba share. It requires very little training since users already are aware of this from the Windows world. If ease of support of unsecured clients is a primary concern, Samba would be a good choice. If you have full control over the clients, NFS can work without any user intervention. This has it's own support benefit, but you need to ensure that client security is taken care of as well.

Samba allows an extra layer of configuration via smb.conf that can help with sharing and access controls, but it can also add a layer of confusion if used improperly. Also, you have to enable special Samba extensions to get full support for things that come native to NFS -- full permission support, symbolic links, hard links, special devices/fifos. If your applications need these things, then you are likely better off using NFS. (And as noted by the earlier posters -- if you use NFS, you'll find better utility from NFSv4 than NFSv3).

There are certainly trade offs, but yes, I can see a reason to implement samba in an all Linux environment if it is the right choice for your user base/application needs.

-Ty!



--
-===========================-
  Ty! Boyack
  NREL Unix Network Manager
  [email protected]
  (970) 491-1186
-===========================-

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