Confused about samba4 & s3fs

[Rowland Penny]

On 17/08/12 04:49, Andrew Bartlett wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-08-16 at 09:51 +0100, Rowland Penny wrote:
>> Hi, over on the samba-users forum, somebody asked a question about
>> Samba4's rfc2307 compatibility with Samba3 and got this reply:
>>
>> [quote]
>> At this stage, we still don't recommend combining file server and DC
>> functions.  By separating these functions onto different (virtual)
>> servers, you can avoid this issue.
>> [unquote]
>>
>> but from '[ANNOUNCE] Samba 4.0 beta6' there is this statement:
>>
>> [quote]
>> In particular note that the new default configuration 's3fs' may have
>> different stability characteristics compared with our previous default
>> file server.  We are making this release so that we can find and fix
>> any of these issues that arise in the real world.
>> [unquote]
>>
>> I do not understand this, the first statement says don't do it, the
>> second says please try it and see if any issues arise.
> For the AD DC, we have always recommended separation, and using a Samba
> 3.x member server for critical files.  However, there are some functions
> of being an AD DC that require a file server, such as providing the
> sysvol share, and DCE/RPC pipes over SMB.
>
> We chose to make 's3fs' the default in the AD DC, and did so earlier
> than perhaps it was perfectly stable because we need the feedback (no
> point pulling the switch on the day of the first release candidate!).
>
> The challenge in making that change in default is that the old default
> was incredibly stable!  The ntvfs file server isn't being further
> developed, but folks who have had long-standing Samba4 deployments
> simply haven't had issues with it, and found Samba4 quite stable
> overall, despite the 'alpha' designation.  As such, it was a step into
> the unknown at that point, and an odd situation where we worried the
> 'beta' releases could be less stable than the alphas that proceeded
> them!
>
> I will tidy up these statements on the basis of the experience we have
> had since that time.
>
>> There is also this statement in '[ANNOUNCE] Samba 4.0 beta6'
>>
>> [quote]
>> Samba 4.0 beta ships with two distinct file servers.  We now use the
>> file server from the Samba 3.x series 'smbd' for all file serving by
>> default.  For pure file server work, the binaries users would expect
>> from that series (nmbd, winbindd, smbpasswd) continue to be available.
>> [unquote]
>>
>>   From these two statements from '[ANNOUNCE] Samba 4.0 beta6', my
>> understanding is that 's3fs' can&  should be used to test it, is this
>> correct? and if not, why not.
> This is and will remain the default configuration of the AD DC.  We
> expect it to work (modulo known bugs such as changing group policies as
> non-administrator) but we need folks to test it to help assure us of
> that.
>
> Andrew Bartlett
>
So after considering all the answers this thread has produced, I think 
that provided I only start the samba daemon, (which will start the smbd 
and the builtin winbindd daemons), I can use s3fs to export unix home 
directories & windows profile shares so that s3fs can be tested. I must 
also use ACLs on the server for directory & file ownership.

Is the above correct?

Rowland


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