Samba scalability?

[Simo Sorce]

On Thu, 21 Dec 2000, Shawn Wright wrote:

> On 21 Dec 2000, at 7:51, Matthew Geddes wrote:
>
> > > Currently our two NT4 server carrying the heaviest file sharing load
> > > deal with about 150 concurrent user connections, and will see 600-
> > > 1200 file locks during normal use. Most of this is user home
> > > shares, with some shared network apps thrown in; clients are 90%
> > > NT4 WKS, with some student win9x PCs and laptops.
> >
> > We've had over 300 concurrent connections. We're doing the whole lot on
> > a Linux box with Samba 2.0.7. The box itself is a 450MHz Celery
> > processor and 256MB RAM. The HDD is a single 13GB IDE. It sometimes uses
> > a fair amount of swap, but we've not had any complaints. This box also
> > manages a connection from each machine to it's closest printer. This box
> > is not a PDC or WINS server.
>
> Hmmm. Is there a formula for calculating Samba's memory
> requirements based on connection #s, volume sizes, etc? Most of
> our servers are in the 40 - 60Gb range for disk storage.
>
> > > One more big question: I'm not tied to Linux by any means, as I've
> > > used various BSDs over the years, so I'd by interested to know if
> > > there is a particular advantage to running samba over a certain
> > > platform, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, etc?
> >
> > I think most of these are fine. I've never tried BSD under a big load,
> > but Samba certainly runs on it ;-)
>
> The main reason I ask is security - although our two longest
> running linux boxes (3.5 and 5.5 years) have been very stable,
> we have had two remote exploits during this time (both on
> RedHat 6.2). To be fair, both could have been avoided had I
> been more diligent on the patches, but it also makes me wonder
> if going with OpenBSD wouldn't be a better idea - at times I find
> the volume of patches from RedHat to rival M$, and I don't
> always have time to investigate patches right away.

Every operating system need maintenance and patching, choose it for it's
overall quality!

>
> Getting back to Samba - are there others out there who have
> made the move from NT Server to Samba in a school
> environment? A few issues that I'm a bit worried about:
>
> 1. Lack of ACL support (I know there talk of this with TNG, but it
> sounds a bit too experimental for me right now). We often have
> cases where user shares on NT will have several users and
> groups listed in the ACL, with varying permissions for each (ie:
> we allow some teachers access to some students' home shares,
> web shares, etc). It would seem that some very careful planning
> is needed to make this work correctly within the *nix file
> permissions model.

Acl will be supported really soon (they are yet on cvs) and on linux they
will work with a patch for the kernel that enables posix acls on ext2
filesystems

>
> 2. Quota support - I've searched the list archives, and seen a few
> questions about quota support, but not too many answers. How
> many are using quotas with NT/Win9x clients, and how well does
> it work? Are there tools to expand upon the disk full message,
> and perhaps send a popup message to the client explaining why
> they can't save a file? Reporting tools for informing admins of
> who's over quota?

I've use quota for 2 years now and they works perfectly.
With linux clients I send periodical mails to people over quota.
You may do the same with a cron script that send a popup to the win
clients.

>
> 3. Backups - We currently use BackupExec 6.5 on an NT server
> to backup all servers. Are there any issues relating to backups
> using samba?

We use amand a with a DLT libraries for all our *nix machines it's really
a beast to understand all the configuration things, but it is extremely
powerfull and reliable!!

>
> ps: I'm not too worried about NT PDC/BDC issues - we will keep
> at least two NT servers to support specific software that requires
> it. For now, I need samba/linux to emulate an NT member server
> as closely as possible...

I used samba as file/printer server in an NT controlled environment,
it works perfectly.

hope this helps,
bye,
Simo.

>
>
> ========================
> Shawn Wright
> Computer Systems Manager
> Shawnigan Lake School
> http://www.sls.bc.ca
> swright at sls.bc.ca
>
>

-- 
Simo Sorce - Integrazione Sistemi Unix/Windows - Politecnico di Milano
E-mail: simo.sorce at polimi.it
Tel.int: 02 2399 2425 - Fax.int. 02 2399 2451
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Be happy, use Linux!