[Samba] About NAS versus Samba

[Daniel Müller]

Hi,
what about the samba running on your NAS. I did a lot of NAS hacking pointing  a running samba/winbind config of the vendor to my nt-style samba/ldap domain .
But if you do so be aware you are loosing your support :-).
So if you can change the samba on your NAS you are up and running.

Greetings
Daniel

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EDV Daniel Müller

Leitung EDV
Tropenklinik Paul-Lechler-Krankenhaus
Paul-Lechler-Str. 24
72076 Tübingen

Tel.: 07071/206-463, Fax: 07071/206-499
eMail: mueller at tropenklinik.de
Internet: www.tropenklinik.de
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-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: samba-bounces at lists.samba.org [mailto:samba-bounces at lists.samba.org] Im Auftrag von fernando at lozano.eti.br
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 11. Juli 2013 06:04
An: Chris Weiss
Cc: samba; users at lists.fedoraproject.org
Betreff: Re: [Samba] About NAS versus Samba

Hi Cris,

>> Hi there, Has anyone tried to configure a NAS server to authenticate 
>> users using a Samba PDC, or even a Samba4 DC (AD-compatible) or an 
>> IPA server?
>
> not in a while, but I have done a samba 3 DC

This was not my question. I'm ok running samba 3 DCs. :-)

Have you ever configured a NAS so it would authenticate users from your Samba DC and them serve SMB file shares (aka network drives) to Windows desktops?


>> I'm evaluating replacing some Linux file server for a NAS product, 
>> but all them make me nervous when the vendor talks about "Active 
>> Directory support" and nothing else.
>
> if 3rd party support is your concern, why are you using fedora instead 
> of RHEL?

Are you trying to sell me RHEL subscriptions or help me with my question? ;-) Anything wrong about asking about Fedora on a Fedora list, or any server issue is forbidden for Fedora users? ;-)

AFAIK it shouldn't matter, from a technical perspective, if the samba DC runs Fedora, Debian, Slackware, RHEL, SuSE, Ubuntu, Solaris, whatever. I am not talking about OS level FC drivers or iSCSI initiators. Either a NAS will be compatible with Samba3, Samba4, both or neither. This depends on the SMB and MSRPC features needed by the NAS, all them application level protocols, not kernel modules. If I'll need Red Hat support for managing this system is another, unrelated, question.

If the NAS vendors state they suṕport RHEL, that's not que question either, as supporting RHEL could mean the RHEL linux kernel smbfs and cifsfs driver talks to the NAS, not the NAS talks to the Samba DC. Or else, RHEL support may mean just that the NAS talks NFS and so a RHEL machine can mount volumes from tne NAS. That's not what I want.

Most times I see linux servers they are simply members of a MSAD domain, not the DC themselves. But mine are. All vendors I talked to assume MSAD, and don't know about Samba. :-(

Anyway Fedora is my desktop system and development workstation. The DC in question runs RHEL. But if this works I can try someday using Fedora or CentOS with the same (or other) NAS.


>>> In theory, many NASes are Linux boxes running samba, so there
>> shouldn't be a problem, except if the web admin interface won't 
>> support a samba DC setup and I won't have SSH access to configure the 
>> NAS samba myself
>>
>
> a cheaper nas will probably use samba, but not all NASs do. there are 
> several commercial SMB/CIFS implementation out there.

At least iomega/lenovo/emc state their NAS runs Samba. And a lot of less know vendors also. I'll buy a single, cheap NAS, not a high end EMC rack full of boxes. :-)

But... will any NAS you know work with a Samba DC, or else, using an IPA server? Or will they only work with Microsoft Windows Server AD?

All vendors I contacted talk only about MS Active Directory. They don't even know about NT4-style domains, which would mean a Samba3 DC should work. Besides, AFAIK a Samba4 DC isn't supported by RHEL at all -- that's why I included IPA in my question -- I'd have to use Sernet packages for Samba4. Even then, Samba4 is very new, I don't know if a NAS implementation would accept it in place of a MSAD DC.

Most vendors talk to me about vmware, exchange and sql server support. 
They offer me windows-only backup servers and the like. Some even offer me SAP R/3 agents, while my ERP is another one. They can only follow their standard script for windows shops. So I ask for the collective knowledge from the Fedora and Samba lists... can anyone tell me "I tried this NAS and it worked"? Or should I better forget about this and keep using cheap intel boxes as file servers?

Am I the first linux sysadmin in the world who's considering to have a NAS replacing some file servers but keeping his samba DCs?


[]s, Fernando Lozano

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