dce/rpc "client" api

[Cole, Timothy D.]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jeremy Allison [SMTP:jeremy at valinux.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, August 23, 2000 15:47
> To:	Cole, Timothy D.
> Cc:	'Gerald Carter'; 'samba-technical at samba.org'; 'lkcl at samba.org'
> Subject:	Re: dce/rpc "client" api
> 
> "Cole, Timothy D." wrote:
> > 
> >         There are a lot more things you can do with DCE/RPC and NT than
> just
> > serving files/printers and providing domain authentication, and Samba
> isn't
> > going to be offering any of them.
> 
> Yet. And anyway, there are perfectly good DCE/RPC implementations
> available for UNIX already, over TCP transport.
> 
	Hrm.  Okay.  I didn't think about that.

	Can everything that uses DCE/RPC over SMB be made to use DCE/RPC
over TCP instead?

> Very few apps use DCE - ask yourself why ?
> 
	I would expect a _lot_ of NT apps that require that sort of thing
use MSRPC...

	[ note that my current understanding is that MSRPC is essentially a
specific application of DCE/RPC, or at least that it requires it ... I've
been using them interchangably in this context.  If that's wrong, it
explains my weird response... ]

> >         I can imagine someone saying "Samba is crap" because, for
> example,
> > they couldn't run a hypothetical GPLed Exchange clone together with
> Samba,
> > just becase Samba is sitting on DCE/RPC over SMB and not sharing.
> 
> I can't - because to implement a hypothetical GPLed Exchange
> clone they'll probably have re-used lots of the Samba DCE
> code and we'll be co-operating with them and loading their
> .so library in order to pass messages to them over the SMB
> transport :-).
> 
	Hrm, I admittedly hadn't really thought about it in terms of code
reuse before.

	Since you put it this way, _if_ this happened in the future,
wouldn't it be better (at that point) to break out the common functionality
in a separate library/service that both Samba and the other software use?

	Unless I'm gravely misunderstanding you, what you describe seems
kind of a backwards way of achieve code reuse.  Copying-and-pasting code, I
mean, and then loading part of the app in-process in Samba to do the
remainder...

> Call me when you've got a *real* product with such a complaint,
> not a hypothetical one.
> 
> :-).
> 
	That's fair.  Original complaint withdrawn.