[snip] >disadvantage: >MS is easier to administrate I take issue with this point. While I agree that someone without a *nix background would find Samba difficult, it's no more difficult than learning to properly administer a Windows server. Even though Windows Server 2003 is built around a GUI paradigm, it's quite difficult to troubleshoot and fix problems without a good, solid, working understanding of the underlying OS -- and you don't get that by osmosis. By that I mean, just because someone may have been using Windows for a long time, the ability to administer it doesn't follow.
It's hard work to properly administer any server, and I would even go so far as to say it's easier to wrongly administer a Windows server, due to the apparent "ease of use" factor. Samba's simple INI-like directive structure is easy to understand: parameter=value. Granted there are lots and lots of parameters and values and combinations thereof, but it's reasonably well documented. Back to answering the original posters question: there ARE a few disadvantages to a Samba infrastructure, though I have to say many of them are not the fault of Samba. One minus: .Net. I run a network for a small Mortgage company, and the software we use to run that company is converting to a .Net infrastructure. Currently, I don't have any Windows servers, so if we decide to run that software we'll have to purchase a lot of Microsoft servers (AD controller, SQL server, etc....) Granted, I could shoehorn in a Samba server as a file and print server, but, really, what's another $600 or so for another server license when we're purchasing that much? Is it worth the headache of getting winbind et. al. up and running? To each his own, of course, but keep in mind that many, many software development houses have bought into the .Net mindset and will be spewing out software that requires this infrastructure. Two minus: Samba as it exists does not emulate any existing version of Windows server -- it implements the CIFS protocol. This is a small but important distinction. You may have some small bits of weirdness in some applications. For example: We have a document imaging program that scans into a database. The developer recently added the ability to import PDF files into the database as well (we receive house appraisals in PDF format, previously we had to print the appraisals and then scan them in....) The problem was that the developer didn't bother to sort the list of files in the import dialog, so a user had to search from a list of thousands of PDFs for one particular PDF. The issue was that when filenames are returned across a network from an NTFS based Windows server they are in alphabetical order. Not so with Samba (or Windows 9x for that matter.) The developer didn't realize this, so didn't sort the files. This was a huge issue with us (especially when the developer -- at first -- refused to sort the files.) Three minus: the Samba developers are stark-raving mad. Complete nutcases. Network sniffing (much like glue sniffing) will do this to you over time. I don't expect them to be able to continue to do their thing as the years go on. Why, I hear some of them mumble about the "army of advancing aardvarks" while they chew on their keyboards. I want April Fools to last all month. --J(K) -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: http://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba
