[Samba] About NAS versus Samba

[Gaiseric Vandal]

On 07/11/13 12:29, Fernando Lozano wrote:
> 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.
> I don't have the NAS box yet. I wish advice on which one to buy based 
> on compatibility with a Samba 3 PDC (or Samba 4 DC, or IPA).
>
> Vendors I talked to tell me it won't work, I'd have to use Microsoft 
> AD.  Knowing the Linux and Windows side (protocols, software) this 
> doesn't make sense to me, I'm guessing the sales people I talked to 
> simply doesn't know and doesn't want to learn.
>
> And it's not easy to tell the boss I'll buy a somewhat expensive box 
> (for a small business) just to hack and see if it'll work the way I 
> want. :-(
>
> It would help if you simply tell me which NAS you had success and 
> which one was easier, out-of-the-box, or had to hack.
>
>
> []s, Fernando Lozano
>

It seems common that vendors (esp the sales guys) assume you are running 
Windows 200x and AD.    I think the logic is that "none of our customers 
use linux so we won't support it."     It becomes self-fulfilling when 
anyone wanting something besides the basic Windows AD support looks for 
other solutions.

Getting samba to work sometimes requires fiddling with protocol 
versions, WINS and DNS.      For example windows 7 won't work with Samba 
3.x until you tweek the registry.       You can probably put together a 
price-comparable equivalent of the Buffalo using a white-box PC tower 
and linux.  You can even set up software raid.       It is more likely 
to work the way you want than a NAS box.