[Samba] Samba newbie question...

[John H Terpstra]

Robert,

Your efforts to help another user are much appreciated. It is this type of
help that makes open source software user friendly. The advice to check
out the HOWOT information on the SWAT home page is good as this is often
more up to date than anything else that has been published. If only we
could keep it completely up to date! :)

The Samba-Team wrote SWAT to opimise the smb.conf file for a reason. I
believe that a configuration file is a poor place for system
documentation, particularly if it can affect performance. This does not
affect small sites but those with hundreds of MS Windows PC clients will
notice a significant problem with unnecessarily large smb.conf files.

So having said that, I am looking for input from people who have an
opinion they wish to share. What is your wish list for SWAT? What new or
improved functionality should SWAT offer to make Samba more usable?

Lastly, I am looking for volunteers to help extend/change/improve SWAT.
This week is SWAT week for me. Between Wednesday and Friday I hope to
overhaul SWAT in the Samba-3.0.0 branch, I would ask for early responses.

Please email comments back to this list, and offers to help with
specifying and coding to me privately at jht at samba.org.

I will summarize comments back to this list later this week.

Cheers,
John T.

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Robert Adkins wrote:

> Dave,
>
> 	Pick up "Using Samba" from O'Reilly. It will definitely give you a great
> base about how Samba, SMB, NMB and a brief intro into a Samba PDC. Of
> course, the information is mildly dated, such is the curse of virtually
> ALL software reference material, but the information can prove to be
> immeasurable in building a Samba server and Samba PDC.
>
> 	That book will fill you in on all of the required information for
> getting a basic Samba setup running. You would also want to take a look
> at the available online documentation that comes included with the
> release of Samba that you eventually choose.
>
> 	The best thing to do, to become familiar with the whole thing, would be
> to create a test machine and just start playing around. In order to get
> Samba and a number of other services that I use up and running, I utilize
> a number of tools. I typically start off with a GUI configuration tool,
> as that will get me a working configuration file, then I dive into the
> file and see how the structure is, which greatly assists in trouble
> shooting down the road and quick CLI edits at a later time.
>
> 	To do that, I use a combination of Webmin, which has proven very
> invaluable to me, SWAT and also the CLI. SWAT, which is accessible
> through Webmin, has a number of useful HOWTOs included within it, there
> is one on making a Samba PDC and a Samba BDC which ONLY works for a Samba
> PDC. I wouldn't recommend using SWAT to edit your smb.conf file as it
> will over write all of the options you may have put down in a working
> file and it will alter the structure of the file that you have become
> familiar with. (It happened to me and I was very unhappy with the
> result.)
>
> 	Much of the other issues, like who and what group gets to write to where
> is covered by the file permissions in Linux. To learn how to properly
> implement those, I would recommend picking up the following book, "Linux
> Administration; A Beginner's Guide", unless you are already familiar with
>  Linux and UNIX Administration. It is available at the following Link.
>  http://shop.osborne.com/cgi-bin/osborne/0072131365.html
>
> 	I picked up the Solaris version of this book and it greatly expanded my
> knowledge of UNIX in general as it is geared towards assisting Windows
> Admins hone their skills on a UNIX system. It makes some great
> comparisons that will be immeasurably helpful. (As you can tell, I can't
> recommend this reference enough.)
>
> 	Of course, if you are already quite familiar with how UNIX and Linux
> operates, then I must apologize for recommending a beginning guide. Good
> luck!
>
> Regards,
> Robert Adkins II
> IT Manager/Buyer
> Impel Industries, Inc.
> Ph. 586-254-5800
> Fx. 586-254-5804
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From: daveman at bellatlantic.net [mailto:daveman at bellatlantic.net]
> Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 12:53 PM
> To: samba at lists.samba.org; Robert Adkins
> Cc: samba at lists.samba.org
> Subject: Re: [Samba] Samba newbie question...
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 24, 2002 at 12:11:00PM -0500, Robert Adkins wrote:
> > Dave,
> >
> > 	I believe that you should first ask what Windows 2000 Active Directory
>
>
> > features you must have before seeing what Samba can do for you. You may
>
>
> > find that you have little or no need for most of the features of AD.
> >
> > 	If all you are looking for is a server to provide you with file
> shares,
> > domain authentication and printer sharing. Then Samba is perfect the
> way
> > that it is. You can create and manage a number of user accounts and
> > groups, control their access create quotas for users via the built-in
>
>
> > Linux/UNIX tools on whatever OS you choose.
> >
> > 	If you say what features you are looking to emulate, I am certain that
>
>
> > more then a few of us can give you the right answers or point you in
> the
> > correct direction.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Robert Adkins II
> > IT Manager/Buyer
> > Impel Industries, Inc.
> > Ph. 586-254-5800
> > Fx. 586-254-5804
> >
> I definitely want to do all of what you have mentioned. I don't
> specifically need too many directory features but I do want to be able to
> have a single, replicable database of user and machine accounts. The
> things I am particularly worried about are things like the NTLOGIN folder
> on the PDC, how to tell user accounts where to find their shared
> directories and mapped drives, how to actually make these changes when
> creating a new account with samba, how to deal with MS kerberos and SAMs,
> etc... Basically, I am a being cautious about actually replacing a very
> important machine in my infrastructure without first knowing EXACTLY what
> I am doing and what any shortcomings I will run into might be. A document
> that addresses issues such as these, from my perspective, would be
> INVALUABLE to someone looking to move a domain to samba control.
>
> Perhaps what I am really looking for this time around is a book that
> actually addresses these issues since I do have so many questions. Alas,
> that is why I joined this list. ;-)
>
> Thanks,
> David Shepard
> >
> >  -----Original Message-----
> > From: daveman at bellatlantic.net [mailto:daveman at bellatlantic.net]
> > Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2002 2:27 PM
> > To: samba at lists.samba.org; Robert Adkins
> > Subject: Re: [Samba] Samba newbie question...
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 04:40:20PM -0500, daveman at bellatlantic.net
> wrote:
> > > Can Samba be used as a complete replacement for a Windows 2000 Active
>
>
> > Directory server? I have some vague notion that this can be
> accomplished
> > by using a combination of OpenLDAP, Samba, MIT Kerberos, and the
> OpenAFS
> > file system. To say the least, the descriptions I have found have been
>
>
> > vague as to whether or not I will be able to completely replace the
> > functionality of an Active Directory server with a similar setup.
> > >
> > > If this is possible, could someone point me to reasonably good
> > documentation on the subject?
> > >
> > > Thanks so much.
> > > --David
> >
> > >From the number of replies I received on this,(none) it seems fair to
>
>
> > assume that this is not entirely possible. Anyone able to tell me what
>
>
> > the current limitations are? I would really like to set up a system
> using
> > samba as much as possible for domain and file serving operations. I
> > suppose I can supplement samba with a win2k server if I have to... ;-)
> >
> > Thanks,
> > David
> >
> >  --
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-- 
John H Terpstra
Email: jht at samba.org