smbd purpose?

[Boyce, Nick]

[Disclaimer: I'm not really a VMS person - just a lurking Samba-on-Unix
list member]

Robert Young asked :

> [I disabled the smbd service but] samba is working just fine ... 
> What is the purpose of the smbd service exactly ?

smbd is a fundamental and vital part of Samba, responsible for
performing the actual data transfers involved in file access.   That
being the case, it's hard to understand how your Samba can possibly be
"working fine".

*  smbd handles file data transfer (on TCP port 139).
*  nmbd handles machine name-to-address lookups (simplisticly put) 
   and Network Neighbourhood "browsing" (on UDP ports 137 and 138).

(The above is for Samba V2.x.x - it's more complicated at Samba V3+)

Your VMS should create ("spawn" in VMS-ese ?) a copy of the smbd process
for each concurrently connected user.

(Somebody tell us if it's different on VMS ...)

Nick Boyce
EDS Central & Ireland ADU (UKIA), Bristol, UK