[Samba] file server or member server?

[steve]

On Tue, 2013-07-02 at 11:02 +0200, Michael Wood wrote:
> Hi Steve
> 
> On 2 July 2013 09:28, steve <steve at steve-ss.com> wrote:
>         On Mon, 2013-07-01 at 19:55 -0500, Ricky Nance wrote:
>         
>         > I feel like I am saying what has already been said, so if
>         you could be
>         > more specific about what kind of hierarchy you have, I could
>         give you
>         > a more specific answer. For the most part, if its serving
>         files and in
>         > a domain, but not providing authentication itself, its a
>         'member
>         > server', if its NOT in a domain, but simply serving files to
>         any and
>         > all windows clients, its a simple file server, if its in a
>         domain and
>         > providing the domain with username/password authentication
>         its a
>         > domain server (or domain controller).
>         
>         
>         Phew, I think I'm getting there.
>         OK, I have:
>         1. a 4.0.6 DC
>         It serves these files selfishly:
>         [netlogon]
>                 path
>         = /usr/local/samba/var/locks/sysvol/hh3.site/scripts
>                 read only = No
>         
>         [sysvol]
>                 path = /usr/local/samba/var/locks/sysvol
>                 read only = No
>         
>         2. A 4.0.6 box joined to the domain. It serves profiles, home
>         directories, stuff that groups can rw to and anything else you
>         can throw
>         at it e.g.
>         [users]
>         path = /home/users
>         read only = No
>         
>         [profiles]
>         path = /home/profiles
>         read only = No
>         
>         [shared]
>         path = /home/shared
>         read only = No
>         
>         /home/profiles and /home/shared have ace's set to mimic what
>         we would
>         otherwise have to set in smb.conf
>         
>         Do I have this?
>         1. is a domain controller and a file server.
> 
> Yes, I suppose so, although most people would not really call it a
> file server, because the files it's serving are just related to the DC
> functionality.  (Or at least that's how I look at it.)  It's not a
> general "anything else you can throw at it" file server.
>  
>         2. is a member server and a file server.
> 
> Yes.
> 
The two "Yes"'s there are wonderful to read. We're going to pretend that
you didn't add the 'I suppose so'.

This introduces another question for which I suppose I should start
another thread but there may be some relevance here.

I think we're making the wrong decision given 2 boxes to make the
domain. We're using the more powerful box with the bigger disk as the DC
but it sits there with hardly any load all the time. The member server
hits smbd hard all day. top gives high %CPU and %MEM a lot of the time,
especially when we're doing photos. It doesn't seem to slow things down
much and the other thing we see is that when everyone logs on at the
same time, it's slow. The latter is the DC but it still doesn't show
much activity. Could that be because it's reading the profile for
windows and the home folder for Linux?

Are there any guidelines for this sort of stuff?
Cheers,
Steve