Samba problems. Samba master fight with Linksys E4200 wireless router with storage ?

[Craig White]

On Sat, 2011-10-15 at 22:08 -0400, Robert Myers wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:25 AM, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2011-09-21 at 00:15 -0400, Robert Myers wrote:
> >> On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 11:15 PM, Craig White <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
> >> > On Tue, 2011-09-20 at 20:29 -0400, Robert Myers wrote:
> >> >> On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 8:17 PM, linux guy <linuxguy123 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >> > Surely its not that hard to get Samba going.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > If it wasn't worth the effort, how else did you enable file sharing on a
> >> >> > mixed client network ?
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Has anyone gotten Samba working from a virgin F15 install ?
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> If you want it to work out of the box, move to Ubuntu.
> >> >>
> >> >> NFS, ssh, sftp can all be made to work using Cygwin.  We just finished
> >> >> a thread on that.  There are lots better choices than using SMB, which
> >> >> is notably vulnerable to hacking.  I've got every damn thing
> >> >> imaginable sharing every which way, and I don't touch Samba.  I used
> >> >> to be an expert.  Got tired of fiddling.  My advice: get Microsoft out
> >> >> of the loop.
> >> > ----
> >> > sure take samba advice from someone who 'doesn't touch samba' - makes
> >> > sense to me.
> >> >
> >> How many versions of samba and windows you been through?  I been
> >> through a lot.  Go back a few years and see if you can make sense of
> >> old documentation.  How-to's are great.  They have a shelf-life of
> >> about six months.
> > ----
> > I have the Official Samba 3 HowTo dated 2003 here on my bookshelf. Yes,
> > there has been 2 updates to it but they are incremental and not
> > monumental changes. That's like 6 months X 16
> >
> > I have been running Samba since about 2.2.7 (about 2000) as a Windows
> > Domain controller. I'm still a samba team member and the editor of
> > wiki.samba.org
> >
> Since I have recently been keel-hauled by the list moderator, I want
> to revisit this subject with a little story.
> 
> Some number of years ago, and maybe even before you knew what SMB
> stood for, I happened to be on a Usenet group to read a panicked
> message from a sysadmin who had to get his payroll out.  Just one
> problem: his data were on Linux and whatever he needed to get the
> checks out was running under Windows, and Samba (as was often the case
> then) wasn't cooperating.
> 
> I forget the details, but the problem was with gdm, and I knew how to
> fix it.  Too bad the Samba developer team wasn't right there to take
> care of it, because Samba sure wasn't taking care of itself.
> 
> Suppose I or someone like me hadn't chanced along?  No paychecks.
> Overdrafts.  Unpaid bills.  Someone who swears he will never rely on
> Samba and possibly on Linux and certainly not on RedHat ever again.
> In retrospect, given the pure rudeness and arrogance on display here,
> I sort of wish I could take it back and say, "Sorry bud.  Guess it's
> your tough luck."
----
it's rather amusing that someone who has demonstrably been wrong on
factual issues would now resort to some anecdotal reference to a
completely obscure situation in order to make some sort of vague point.

The situation is that Samba is at least the second widely used FOSS
package (behind only apache), it has the best documentation and it is
used throughout the world. It provides both Windows server and Windows
client functionality. It can mimic file share modes from Windows 95/98
through Active Directory and DFS. It can be a member server in any
Windows based network or a domain controller on its own and with Samba
4, can be a participating Active Directory controller. It integrates
with LDAP, Kerberos and other high level technologies.

While I would agree that cygwin or Microsoft's SFU can be valuable
tools, if you have a Windows based network, nothing is going to match
the speed, utility, quality and reliability of Samba... certainly not
cygwin and not SFU.

I find that you are given to express opinions for which you have little
basis of fact and do this repeatedly. To wit:

- "How-to's are great.  They have a shelf-life of about six months."
  (my 8 year old 'official Samba 3 How-To' is still sufficient)

- "There are lots better choices than using SMB, which is notably
vulnerable to hacking."
  (has to come as quite a shock to business all across the world that
use SMB - but technically, most are actually using CIFS as is Samba
these days)

- "I forget the details, but the problem was with gdm"
  (How could Samba have anything to do with gdm?  Not possible)

I suppose that there are all sorts of low information users that might
come to a conclusion that they can't rely on Samba or Linux or Red Hat
based upon a lack of knowledge/understanding but that is the point...
it's hard to rely upon things that you don't understand and if someone
purposely decides not to make an effort to learn the technology, then
maybe that person should just use proprietary solutions by Microsoft or
others and pray that they just work out.

Telling people to use Ubuntu to solve a Fedora problem is just wrong.

Telling people to use something other than Samba to integrate with their
Windows network is just wrong.

Revisiting a thread where you tried to pass off poorly informed opinions
as facts seemed to be rather unnecessary.

Craig


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