Microsoft Knowledgebase article / smb.conf

[Richard Kail]

Hello !

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Edward Schernau wrote:

> some sort of new notation maybe? like:
> 
> browser.domain.master = no
> browser.os.level = NT  (with some sort of DOS,Win9x,NT, or NT++
> setting).
> since you only need to be > than 1 OS, you dont NEED os level = 20,
> you just need a 2, 17 or 33 really.  So Samba can either =
> DOS, Win9x, or NT, or be 1 level higher if needed.	

I like the idea to change the names of the configuration parameters in
smb.conf into something other.

It is very painfull for me to remember exactly what which parameter does
and in which part of the several services (netbios, wins, browser, PDC,
file sharing ...) it fits.

I can't tell you how to name them really to be intuitive, but I know that
their current names are not good (maybe there is no better solution - I
have no proof for that..)

I try to explain this, but don't flame me if you don't agree:

<very drafting>

For example, if you define a share, you have a parameter "read only" which
is inverted equivalent with "writeable" which is equivalent with "write
ok".

Another example: 

You can define a share as "printing ok". This looks like "printing ok =
yes" or "printable = yes".


I think, this conflicts with the way users (and sysadmins are also some
special kind of users when thinking about smb.conf) think. They think

my samba server should be a  PDC | WINS-Srv | Fileserver-Only

or 

Nameservice = Self-wins | Wins-someother(IP=1.2.3.4) | dumb-lmhosts

or

Printer-share 

and not 

share .... this is printable.


hm. I hope you get the point....

Sambas smb.conf style is more like tweaking the lower bits of the
protocols to get things running - which is total ok for developing the
code, but makes problems for sysadmins which are not so familiar with the
inner details of M$ protocols.

Maybe it would be a good idea to make one or more 'meta parameters' which
set the whole range of "domain options", "browse options" and "wins
options" to sensible defaults and to name them analog to the M$
terminology, so that sysadmins in trouble see actually what they do. Hm...

like this:

samba mode = PDC     ; sets all defaults so that it looks like a M$ PDC
samba mode = fileserver ; plain fileservice
samba mode = fileserver domain ; fileservice with domain auth
samba mode = fileserver winsserver ; plain fileservice with wins

and so on ... 




have a nice day,

Richard


-- 
"Security on the Internet is a community effort." 
  --- CERT Advisory CA-2000-01