[Samba] Getting Oriented

[Robert Moskowitz]

As Marc recently pointed out, start with:

https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/User_Documentation

But for me at least, it has been a learning struggle.  There are a 
number of things you have to add for a running AD besides Samba. See my 
email on "AD order of installation" to get a feel for what is involved.

Of course first chooose your Linux distro.  Then consider using sernet 
for your Samba instead of what the distro provides.

Then go from there.

On 09/05/2015 08:43 PM, Ross Boylan wrote:
> It was disconcerting to find the Official HowTo,
> https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/, to be for
> Samba 3.5.  Much other documentation (both online and Using Samba, 3rd
> Edition* by *Jay Ts; Gerald Carter; Robert Eckstein, O'Reilly Media, Inc)
> is also old. Apparently a known problem,
> http://marc.info/?l=samba&m=139519806107456&w=2, but still..  Web search
> found https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba4-HOWTO, but it's mostly
> empty.
>
> I would appreciate some guidance.
>
> Some of the slide presentations for Samba 4 indicate it is intended to be
> much simpler to setup than Samba 3, and the simplicity will eliminate
> dependence on outdated web pages.  This suggests I should not trust those
> pages, but there doesn't seem to be any overview available for the current
> Samba  And apparently there is an old (Samba 3ish) and new (ADish) system
> available, and I'm not sure which I should use.
>
> In priority order, my goals are
> 1.  Act as a file server.  I'm currently running samba 3 to do so, and had
> pretty poor performance attempting to  do a Windows backup from a Windows 7
> client to it.  "Poor" means not only slow, but unable to complete.  The
> client said there wasn't enough room, even though the reported free space
> (on the client) exceeded the space it said it needed for backup.  But
> perhaps that was only the space it had used so far.
> 2. Use Windows printers.  They require some special drivers and accounting
> codes.  Maybe I could piggy-back off a Windows workstation?
> 3. Register the machine and services in the Active Directory.
> 4. Use shared files from the domain.  I'm already doing this; it's only
> last because I don't think samba is involved.
>
> Somewhat distinct from that, I also want user management for my Linux
> machines.  I was going to use LDAP and Kerberos, but since they are already
> in Samba, should I use it?  The identities involved would just be for my
> private use.
>
> My Linux systems will all be running in VMs (which might explain some of
> the  poor performance in point 1; networking with the outside world seems
> to be a weak point).
>
> I think I can do a fresh installation; there's very little setup in my
> existing samba 3 installation.
>
> The  typical network client is Windows 7; I think the  domain was recently
> migrated to Windows Server 2012.
>
> Currently samba 3 is in workgroup mode.  The machines show up in network
> neighborhood and I can ping them using just the machine name (e.g.,
> markov01) from a Windows command prompt.  However, they don't seem to have
> an existence as FQDNs (e.g., ping markov01.ucsf.edu fails).  I guess
> there's some vestigal NetBIOS naming service still running.
>
> I know very little about Active Directory, in particular I'm not sure if
> any of the AD roles are appropriate for my machine.  I don't think I want
> it to be a domain controller or a member server.  I have no administrative
> rights with respect to the campus AD.
>
> My immediate interest in Samba 4 is in overcoming the  performance problems
> noted above for goal 1.  I also have to switch because my distribution,
> Debian, switched and 3 is unsupported.  And I'm hoping to work a little
> better with AD (goal 2-4).
>
> Ross