[Samba] Concerns about Samba4

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> I attended the Samba conference at the FOSDEM yesterday. Jeremy Allison was 
> great, and explained very clearly the problems faced by implementing an 
> Active Directory controller.
> The CIFS protocol is required in heterogenous environments. Jeremy made it 
> pretty clear that even in pure Unix environments, CIFS is quite superior to 
> NFSv4. Samba is thus a required component of pretty much any network, even 
> when using Unix workstations and servers only.
> Implementing a Samba Active Directory domain controller requires more 
> components than for an NT4 domain controller. Samba will have to integrate an 
> LDAP server, a Kerberos server, a DNS server and a DHCP server. It will have 
> to implement remote registry access and many Windows-related DCE/RPC calls. 
> Those don't make much sense in Unix-only environments. Moreover, the LDAP 
> directory schema will have to match the Microsoft AD schema, which is badly 
> documented to say the least.
> I'm concerned about all the unneeded features that will be introduced by 
> Samba4 in pure Unix environments, as well as by the implications that Samba4 
> will have on other services. The LDAP directory will have to implement the 
> Microsoft AD schema, which is not compatible with any current Unix 
> application. How will Samba4 interoperate with groupware softwares for 
> instance ? Has anyone thought about how to mix Unix LDAP-aware applications 
> with Samba4 ? Aren't we pushing bloated, buggy and badly thought 
> Microsoft "standards" to the Unix platform in the name of interoperability 
> without thinking about the consequences this will have on other services and 
> on the overall stability ?
> Thanks in advance to all of those who will prove me wrong and let me sleep 
> peacefully again :-)

http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/LDAP_Backend