Confused about samba4 & s3fs

[Arvid Requate]

Hi Steve, hi Rowland,

> Could anyone give us a definitive yes/no to s3fs?

See thread "To release Samba 4.0 'as is'" which startet in November 
2011:

Quoting Michael Adam Wed Nov 30 02:51:16 MST 2011
> Also, coming back to the two file servers, I don't think
> that it will be a problem to simply have the s4 file server
> part still around. The smbd file server part should be the
> default and we should make it very clear that the smbd file server
> is the default and supported one. It should be necessary to switch
> on the s4 file server explicitly. We could easily document
> the limited cases in which using it can be useful.
( https://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2011-
November/080656.html )

Quoting Andrew Tridgell Mon Nov 28 22:39:01 MST 2011:
> In past discussions I tried to make it clear that I didn't want the
> ntvfs/ code to be deleted, only that the default should be the
> s3 smbd one.
( https://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2011-
November/080616.html )


Rearding the original question:
> Are we saying that the DC and file server should be separate (in
> which case how about a S4 DC and a S4 s3fs file server on another
> box) or are we saying that all file serving must be done from a S3
> box which is separate from the DC?

As I understand the communicated situation, if you want to deliver 
production level fileservices with the features you expect from 
Samba3, then it is recommended to avoid the Samba4 embedded 
source4/winbind on the fileserver. For the Samba4 DCs on the other 
hand, the source4/winbind implementation is needed. Thus the 
recomendation to provide file services on a separate Samba member 
server. And the WHATSNEW.txt does point out that domin member 
support in Samba4 is currently "in it's infancy". So adding this 
together equals to: For maximum stability file services run them on a 
separate Samba3 based memberserver. 

On the other hand: With the merge of the source3 and source4 builds 
(e.g. loadparm), you may configure and run your binaries compiled 
from the samba4 codebase in such a way, that you actually have a 
Memberserver with smbd nmbd and source3/winbind -- albeit with the 
added thrill of running a non-final snapshot release of the smbd 
fileserver. You would have to use samba3-style init scripts for this to 
start smbd as a separate process (in contrast to the s3fs-service of 
the source4/samba process).

Cheers,
Arvid

-- 
Arvid Requate
Open Source Software Engineer

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