[PATCH] New external idmap module

Gautier, B (Bob) Bob.Gautier at rabobank.com
Wed May 31 09:46:00 GMT 2006


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Volker Lendecke [mailto:vlendec at sernet.de] On Behalf Of 
> Volker Lendecke
> Sent: 31 May 2006 10:09
> To: Gautier, B (Bob)
> Cc: simo; Gerald Carter; Samba Technical
> Subject: Re: [PATCH] New external idmap module
> 
> On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 09:36:05AM +0100, Gautier, B (Bob) wrote:
> > Not fine by me!
> 
> Ok. I would be fine adding a negative cache to the id map.

I actually implemented some negative caching code when I was having
trouble with performance, but gave up when I realised that without any
sort of cache *expiry* system (that I could find), once a user was
'negatively cached' then they could never be enabled (by giving them a
valid uidNumber, gidNumber) except by deleting the entire cache (stop
winbindd, kill winbindd_idmap.tdb) which was not acceptable as a
solution.  Fortunately I came up with the LDAP filter I proposed in
BZ3751.

> What I still fail to see is a valid reason to change existing 
> mappings. Could you please be a bit more specific why you 
> need to change an existing mapping in a situation that does 
> not allow you to remove winbindd_idmap.tdb and restart Samba?

I don't know if we could live without the ability to change mappings
around here -- I don't make the policy on how such things are managed.
I do know that if I was using another mechanism (e.g. the plain old
passwd file, or an LDAP directory) then I could change users' uidNumbers
at will.  Of course I understand that leaves me some mess to clean up
regarding file ownership etc.

Whilst such messing around is uncommon, probably *ought* not to happen,
and has consequences that are messy, I don't see why Samba should make
it more awkward, especially if there's no technical problem (and
especially if the code has already been written, which seems to be the
case here).

> > FWIW I would love to see a mechanism that would allow all the idmap 
> > functionality to be segregated into a separate process, 
> independent of 
> > the mainline Samba code, so that 1) we have complete 
> control over the 
> > idmap algorithm and 2) we can use a custom algorithm whilst still 
> > using a standard, out-of-the-distro-vendors-box, build of Samba for 
> > which we can get support.
> 
> Both of these features I think are provided by the script 
> solution. What is it specifically that this script solution 
> does not give you?

My feeling is that it gives me lower performance (if I enumerate 1000
users, I'd rather be doing 1000 round trips over a socket than 1000 fork
and execs, of a script that might have to establish connections to some
database...) and consequently less scalability.

If the API to the external idmap is {Unix|tcp} socket, then of course
someone can write the script-based implementation if they need to, and
can tolerate the performance implications, and that seems the right way
around to me.

> > Although I have not followed the discussion in every 
> detail, I think 
> > that means I am in support of the original external idmap module 
> > proposal, complete with TCP socket support (because I think if it's 
> > not in the basic module, someone will write a proxy 
> eventually anyway).
> > 
> > Isn't an external, TCP-reachable idmap module relevant to the Samba 
> > clustering work?  I wonder if their messaging protocols are worth 
> > using here, at least.
> 
> It is, but I do not expect clusters to change existing 
> mappings on an ongoing basis, so for this application I would 
> very much assume that the script solution would be fine.

I agree: changing mappings isn't likely to be a commmon thing to do.
But when it happens, it has to be done consistently across the whole
cluster.  And since clusters will often be deployed where high
availability is a goal, a stop-delete-cache-restart procedure is
unlikely to be acceptable.

> Volker
> 
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