Fwd: [linux-cifs-client] Again: question about CIFS versus smbclient.

[Stef Bon]

Stef,

my experiences with cifs are the following:

A problem with cifs is the poor support for samba servers using unencrypted
passwords ("encrypt passwords" set to no). I need access to such a server
(on AIX) and due to this I am still on Fedora 4 with kernel 2.6.26. cifs
should support unencrypted passwords if compiled with
CONFIG_CIFS_WEAK_PW_HASH=y and and after putting 0x37 into
/proc/fs/cifs/SecurityFlags, but this does not seem to work (see my posting
http://lists.samba.org/archive/linux-cifs-client/2008-July/003154.html).

Unfortunately the admins of this samba server won't change "encrypt
passwords" to yes as they do not want to maintain samba passwords. They
prefer using OS authentication.

When is your article going to be published? Could you send me a note?

Thank you!



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stef Bon <stefbon at gmail.com>
Date: 2008/7/25
Subject: Re: [linux-cifs-client] Again: question about CIFS versus
smbclient.
To: mwulfff at yahoo.de


Thanks for your reply. What you're pointing at is a disadvantage of mounting
with cifs in a special environment.

I'm sorry, this is not exactly what I'm looking for.
I'm interested in the way modern desktops (KDE en GNOME) integrate into a
Windows Network. KDE uses a kioslave, GNOME the VFS with a smb module.
Different, but based upon the same library smbclient.so.

Now, I've made construction, with a browseable network map, created by the
automounter.
For the Windows Network it shows all the workgroups/domains, servers/hosts
and shares on a per user
basis.

Now to access a share CIFS is used.

More info:

http://linux.bononline.nl/linux/automountsmbshares/automountsmbshares-page01a.php

So this construction uses CIFS. How does it behave in a Windows Network,
compared to methods using the smbclient.so library. My intuition says it's
much better, but I cannot make is explicit. Better support of ACL/Extended
attributes? Better locking mechanism? Inotify? Kerberos auth?
I know one thing, and that's in an environment where Unix extensions are
supported (Samba and special Windows servers) CIFS supports these, where
smbclient doesn't do anything with it.
But that's only in special environments.


Stef Bon
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