SMBlib: status? Other mod's

[Gary Shea]

Hi Eric -- Glad to hear you're working on SMBlib... we'd better start
cooperating soon!  I have made lots of changes myself.

I wonder if we could set up a CVS archive somehow so that we can
both work on the system.  Either that or we should discuss how the
changes are going to work so that, as you say, we don't all try
to do the same thing, or worse, things which couldn't possibly work
together.  As a first step, perhaps we should exchange patches
or something, and come up with an 'improved' version.

I'd like to see some global changes so that we don't have separate
functions for each combination of AndX requests, but rather a
piece of code that knows how to put AndX requests together.
Also (and I would be willing to do this) I'd like to see better
error reporting functions available from the outside -- right
now it's hard to tell where to look for an error message.
Another thing I'd like to see (although I haven't thought
it through yet) is better layering -- so that we can build
up the set of all the different fuctions (locking, connecting,
etc.) for all the different protocols, then a layer that
implements a protocol, and above that the user interface,
so the user knows as little as they want to about the protocol
being used and what functions make it up.  It's pretty much
of a total re-write, but we can use the existing functionality
to build the per-protocol functions.  Finally, I'd like to
see a better way of specifying packet layout.  The current
scheme of millions of defines is really ugly... although
it works.  Any better ideas?

I'd like to know about your low-level functions -- it's
an area that needs lots of help, since code is replicated
in virtually every function.

I don't think we an expect Samba to use SMBlib, they have
a working system after all, and we are working on a decrepit
old library!  On the other hand, if SMBlib is ever brought
up to date, they might (I am only guessing) adopt it.
More important to just get it working.

As far as I know there is no other mailing list, but this one
should do, and if the Samba developers think we're taking up
to much bandwidth, we can set up our own.

Just to be clear on what I'm planning, I am not likely to
be too involved in big changes.  I'll help out where I can
but I'm working on smblib to fulfill the needs of a client,
and trying to do some good work for the community at the
same time.  When smblib will do what the client needs it to,
in a manner that I don't find totally disgusting, I'll
pretty much drop working on it.

On Thu, 5 Mar 1998, Eric Estievenart wrote:
> 
> 	Hi !
> 
> I saw your post on the mailing-list and the newsgroup, and I have started
> working to smblib a few days ago. I've patched it, corrected some severe
> bugs (particularly one in RFCNB_Get_Pkt), implemented some api functions
> (api ShareEnums, ServerEnums), reduced the source code (providing some new
> low-level functions) in order to increase the visibility of the code.
> I made that in order to make a really good network browsing tool for Unix
> (I use Linux), and I'm still working on it.  
> 
> 	Are there people working on SMBlib too ? I think that it is a
> great project, and some rules should be fixed in order to avoid people
> doing the same work. Maybe could samba be based on smblib in the future,
> but for the moment smblib lacks a lot of functions...
> 
> 	Any clues, ideas, what's your opinion ?
> 
> Another question, is there a specific mailing-list for samba developpers, 
> or is there only this mailing-list ?
> 
> -- 
>  ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._
>   `6_ 6  )   `-.  (    ).`-.__.`) Eric Estievenart
>   (_Y_.)'  ._   )  `._ `.``-..-'  VIA - Centrale Reseaux
>  _..`--'_..-_/  /--'_.' ,'        eric at via.ecp.fr
> (il),-''  (li),'  ((!.-'
> 
> 

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Gary Shea                                       shea at xmission.com
Salt Lake City                      http://www.xmission.com/~shea