Multiple workgroups (was Dear Ol' Samba)

[David Collier-Brown]

Nadeem Hasan wrote:
> This was posted on SuSE List.

	Could you forward this answer to that SuSE list?  I'm
	sending it to you and samba at samba.org...

Bruce wrote:
> Does anyone know if it is possible to run multiple versions of the
> smbd daemon (samba/smb) to support multiple Windoze WORKGROUPS from the
> one machine?

	It's barely possible, by running two separate sambas.
	Another commentator tried it, and had the expected
	severe but non-fatal difficulties(;-))

> The reason is that we have two workgroups - ADMIN and RIFRAF and I need to
> be able to serve resources to both, ideally from the one machine.

	It's a lot easier to tell all your user that there
	is a new workgroup, possibly named after the whole company 
	or division, and two servers named ADMIN and RIFRAF.
	Those servers would have all the shares that used to 
	live on multiple servers in those workgroups.

	This is fully supported by Samba.

	[A note to the list: in most printing of Using Samba,
	I had smbd supporting multiple workgroups. This was an
	error, due to my klutzing the test!  It's fixed in
	later versions, which aren't as misleading.]

	Migration to a single-server, single workgroup 
	configuration is particularly easy: make the
	old server's share read-only, copy it to a r/o
	share on the new server, and then change that to r/w.
	You can do much of this during working hours, with
	adequate notice, except for people's home directories.
	And even them, if your users are kind (;-))

--dave
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | Always do right. This will gratify some people
185 Ellerslie Ave.,   | and astonish the rest.        -- Mark Twain
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Work: (905) 415-2849 Home: (416) 223-8968 Email: davecb at canada.sun.com