[Samba] Thank you! Upgrade from Novell 4.11 is complete

[Misty Stanley-Jones]

I just wanted to write to you guys and thank you for all of your help and 
hand-holding as I upgraded our company's file server from a Pentium 200mmx 
running Novell 4.11 to a nice P4 server running Linux and Samba 3.0.9.  It 
took from September to the end of December to accomplish it, but I have 
gotten compliments from several users about how smooth the transition was.

My environment includes every version of Windows since (and including) Windows 
95.  I even have a computerized saw on my network, and it is happily getting 
its cut files from the Samba server.  I only have about 60 users, so I guess 
it is a much smaller install than most.  But Samba is running extremely lean, 
and not bogging the server down at all.

Below is a brief summary of what I did:

1.  Used 'rsync' to keep all of the data on the new server up-to-date with 
what was on the Novell server so the users would not lose any data in the 
transition.

2.  Completely rearranged the shares and the way they are presented to much 
users, while providing some shares to certain users who needed to see certain 
drive letters for their ancient (RBase, QBasic) applications to work.

3.  Improved security and eliminated home directories for users who have not 
worked here for years and years.

4.  All printer drivers except for the pen plotter are now stored on the 
server.  Printing via CUPS+Samba, and the print performance has outstripped 
the Novell print server by thousands of percents.

5.  LDAP for authentication to not only Samba, but most UNIX servers, incoming 
and outgoing mail servers, and implemented a searchable white-pages while I 
was at it.

6.  I am using Kixtart for login scripts.  Drive letters are assigned based on 
group membership and machine type, and roaming profiles are implemented with 
folder redirection for non-laptop machines.

My users are very very happy, and my boss is extremely pleased with the 
price-point and the performance.  I just wanted to let you guys hear of a 
Samba success story.  I will be happy to offer any advice for what I have 
learned along the way.

Appreciatively,
Misty