outsourcing DCE/RPC to alternate programs - runtime config option

[tridge at samba.org]

Michael,

 > Forgive my ignorance, but:  If one wants the DCE RPC functionality only, can
 > they use the Samba RPC? 

In Samba4 you would do this:

	server services = rpc

and this would make Samba only start the rpc server (so it would not
start the builtin smb or ldap servers). It will only be listening on
tcp ports 135 and 1024, plus any local rpc transports that are defined
(such as /var/ncalrpc/DEFAULT and /var/ncalrpc/EPMAPPER) and any fixed
ncacn_ip_tcp ports defined in the builtin IDL files.

Unfortunately this would not allow you to use the ncacn_np transport,
which is the most common transport for RPC traffic, as that transport
is carried over the smb file sharing transport. You could use
ncacn_ip_tcp and the other local transports (ncalrpc etc), but if you
have legacy rpc applications then there is a good chance they will
want to use ncacn_np.

Alternatively you could use:

	server services = rpc smb

and just not define any file shares. That will allow ncacn_np to be
used, but will not allow any other SMB server on the same IP
address. You'd need to use IP level virtual hosting to allow for other
SMB servers on the same box.

 > I notice it is available on a lot of platforms.  I would be much
 > cheaper than having to license DCE for each different
 > platform/customer.  Thanks.

The original DCE/RPC implementation is available for free in the form
of FreeDCE. You don't need to pay any license fees to
anyone. Unfortunately it is also a fairly difficult codebase to work
with, and doesn't provide any builtin support for the ncacn_np
transport. That's why the XAD project uses Samba3 to provide the smb
transport needed for ncacn_np, and then uses FreeDCE based external
RPC servers on top of that.

Cheers, Tridge