[Samba] Re: Use Samba as drop-in replacement for NFS

[Robert Kelly]

Akshat Aranya wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Is it possible to use Samba as a drop-in replacement for NFS, namely,
> allowing a system-wide anonymous mount which authenticates access to
> files based simply on the unix ids of the user accessing the files and
> the file permissions are equivalent to what is present in the
> underlying file system that is exported.
> 
> Thanks,
> Frood
I don't think so in the way you're thinking.
Mounting any share through smbfs or cifs has to be done as a certain
user. That user is used for the cifs session. Any file or directory
operation is done as that user.
pam_mount may help you out here for home directories or mounts in ~/mnt,
but not for a common mount point on a multiuser system.
http://www.flyn.org/projects/pam_mount


A while ago (I'm talking only a few months) it was not possible to use a
cifs mount for  home directories for a Linux client for apps that use
unix specific files like fifos and sockets. KDE for example would bomb
if mounted via smbfs or cifs.
Now it looks like it could work. I'm running kernel 2.6.11 and mounting
via cifs a share on Samba 3.14a.
get/setfacl works as well as making fifos. I haven't tried mounting a
home directory yet.
Make sure you have 'unix extension = yes'(it's the default) in smb.conf
and a recent kernel.

Rob