Samba (was Re: [ale] Win 95 long file names)

[Dan Newcombe]

On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, frank zamenski wrote:
> Then for a large LAN, as netbios/netbui is non-routable, it still has to
> ride on top of tcp/ip, doesn't it?

Yup.  All my wintel boxes just have TCP/IP installed, no IPX, no Netbios.
Forces it to use TCP/IP :)
 
> >NFS is what unix boxes use for "sharing".  A well known and loved/hated
> >  standard long before Windows heard of networking according to my
> >  limited history knowledge, that Gates and friends couldn't handle 
> >  implementing despite the specs being freely available...

Well, I'm sure they could handle it, but it wouldn't lock people into the
Microsoft way or highway solution :)

> >> >Windows and Novel (excuse my lack of novel knowledge) use that
> >  netbios/nebui hack(not meant in a good way) for sharing filesystems
> >  around.  Samba provides this type of sharing for Unix boxes to
> >  share and map Windows filesystems.

Actually, Samba provides the ability for Unix boxes to be mounted from a
Wintel box, or printers to be used.  Only on linux can you actually mount
a windows filesystem from a unix box.

Basically, Samba provides most of the Domain Control BS that NT does.  You
can store NT/95 profiles on a Samba server, authenticate Domain users
against a Unix password list instead of an NT one.  

The only thing that it really lacks right now is the Group functions that
NT gives.