Samba record locking & PC db's

Scott D. Webster swebster at carroll.com
Wed Dec 3 19:14:35 GMT 1997


On Tue, 2 Dec 1997, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:

> At 13:31 03-12-97 +1100, Scott D. Webster wrote:
> >Fellow Samba-meisters,

<Question regarding sharing PC db files w/ samba>

> >	This is slightly off-topic, but I was wondering if anyone could
> >offer a comparison of samba-sharing PC db files or using a C/S setup with
> >something like PostgreSQL as a backend.
> 
> I've done both and if you're going to have the RDBMS on thew Linux box
> anyway then why cripple it by using a non-native RDBMS? My vote's for
> Empress, but PostgreSQL, with ODBC face, is much preferred over Access, on
> Linux. You also eliminate the extra networking Samba layers and traffic on
> your LAN.
> 
> Look at it this way, you *have* to run Access on a Windows machine, but the
> actual data is on an *other* machine (Linux), via a Samba mount. Queries go
> across the LAN to hit the Access server, which exchanges *more* packets
> with  Samba server to get the data. Bottom-line is that you collision light
> will *stay* lit forever. Even with 100baseTX, this is not a good topology.
> The same data is hitting the LAN 2-3 times before your app gets the point.
> 
> I think that you either want to use Access on a WinNT server or go with a
> full client/server solution.

	Well, the use of Access is a given and I'm using Linux not NT.  My
client is using Access already.  I'm not doing any db programming or
development for him, I'm just setting up the server.  My options are (a)
use Access to manipulate db files shared through samba (w/ record locking)
or (b) use Access to manipulate the db over an ODBC connection to
PostgreSQL. 

	Does anyone care to comment on the desirability/viability of these
options?

--
Scott D. Webster                              swebster at carroll.com
Etc Services                                   Voice: 201.385.7113
Linux / Unix Consulting                        Pager: 800.379.2402



More information about the samba mailing list