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The Official Samba 3 HOWTO and Reference Guide 156

Posted by timothy from the doing-things-officially dept.
Matt Will writes "The Official Samba 3 How-To and Reference Guide was written by John H. Terpstra and Jelmer Rinze Vernooij in collaboration with the core developers of the Samba-Team (www.samba.org) and expert end users. The book is written with special focus towards administrators of Microsoft Windows systems, giving them a first insight into the capabilities of Samba and a well guided step-by-step guide for migrating systems from a Microsoft solution to Samba." Read on for the rest of Will's review.
The Official Samba-3 HOWTO and Reference Guide
author John H. Terpstra, Jelmer R. Vernooij
pages 736
publisher Prentice Hall
rating 9
reviewer Matt Will
ISBN 0131453556
summary Good summary of setting up, using, and troubleshooting Samba 3

The book itself

For people with little time, the book starts with the chapter "FastStart: Cure for the Impatient," which features many example configurations of working solutions, each illustrating working setups using Samba to different ends -- as a file and print server, CD-ROM server, etc.

In the following chapters, the How-To and Reference Guide deals with all aspects of server and security modes, domain control and backup domain control and stand-alone configurations. Each of the chapters include further example configurations as well as in-depth discussion of the chapter's topic, and a "common errors" section that answers the most obvious real life errors.

In the third part of the book (Advanced Configuration) the reader is presented with detailed information on the topics of network browsing, account information databases, and group mapping from MS Windows to the Unix world, as well as file, directory and share access controls and file and record locking. There is also a second chapter about security in this part of the book.
Still in the third part, the book explains the new features of Samba 3.0.0, for instance interdomain trust relationships and distributed file systems.

Two very thorough chapters explain the conventional printing support with Samba, as well as printing via the newer print system CUPS. Following short chapters about winbind and network management, the Guide explains how to set up and maintain system and account policies, and how to exercise desktop profile management, and provides short but informative chapters about PAM authentication, Windows/Samba network integration, character sets, and some words about backups and high availability.

Part 4 of the Samba How-To Guide deals exclusively with updating and migrating from Samba 2.x to Samba 3.0.0, including an example migration from a NT4 PDC to a Samba-3 PDC and a user guide to the SWAT (graphical interface for configuring Samba) tool.

In part 5 (Troubleshooting) the reader is given a very good checklist to verify all functions of the Samba installation are working correctly and a guide how to analyze and solve problems with Samba.

In the appendices, the book gives information on how to obtain and compile Samba, lists supported platforms, gives hints for performance tuning, dhcp and dns, and includes the man pages to the Samba programs and configuration files.

Primary audience

The book is written for people in the "Windows world" who want to take a look into the services and possibilities Samba offers for them. Beginners get very detailed information which things are possible with Samba and which are not (for now), as well as the necessary background for installing and configuring Samba on a Unix/Linux system. For the advanced user, there are still some diamonds of new information and also a good reference for all the new settings and options in the new Samba release.

Personal Rating

I can recommend this book to everyone interested in Samba - especially the new 3.0 version - no matter if you are new to Samba or even an experienced user of the software who is interested in expanding your knowledge and trying new features. It has its place on my bookshelf of very useful documentation.

You can purchase The Official Samba 3 HOWTO and Reference Guide from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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The Official Samba 3 HOWTO and Reference Guide

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  • The book is written with special focus towards administrators of Microsoft Windows systems giving them a first insight into the capabilities of Samba and a well guided step by step guide for migrating systems from a Microsoft solution to Samba.

    Wait a minute - What's wrong with Microsoft?

    • Re:i have a question (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sporty ( 27564 )
      Can you get windows 2k running with 30 users on a p2-266?

      How about giving people access to a development unix jboss webapps directory, directly from their windows workstations?

      Sometimes, it's not whether windows is good or bad.. it's just bloody inconvenient with what you have before you.

    • One word... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cnelzie ( 451984 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:37PM (#7454456) Homepage
      CALs.

      Extra words follow...

      For our small corporate network, I have determined that it would cost us nearly $40,000 USD (Just for the Software!) to maintain a Primary and Back-up Domain Controller using Microsoft Windows 2000. This includes both the Main Server License costs and the multiple packs of CALs required to allow each user access to the servers.

      Instead of that, we went with a Linux/Samba solution using the same hardware and saved... $40,000 in licensing costs. Sure, it took me a little longer to setup in the first place, of course my pay rate isn't even high enough to consider an issue in regards to choosing between Linux/Samba or Windows 2000 for our domain.

      From my reading, I can double and even triple the number of users with the current Samba system and see no additional license costs for CALs (or the time to calculate how many CALs we would need) or the need for upgrading the hardware.
      • And if you leave, what will be the cost to the company finding a replacement who works in the MSFT world yet also understands Samba? You said it took you a while to setup, which makes it sound like it's not a regular config, or something straight out of the box - have you documented that? Or is that going to equate in to further training and maintenance costs to your replacement?
        • I use to work in a mixed NT and Samba network, (we have not migrated off of NT over to Linux), and to be honest after the setup, which did take a little longer to setup (2 days). It ran without a hitch. So I would say that to find a replacement for this guy would not be a problem because any technical guy (or gal) worth his or her salt could figure out Samba in around 2-3 days. The stuff just works.

          • Re:One word... (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Malc ( 1751 )
            I disagree. We are a 25 person company with an additional self-managed co-lo facility. It's in The Valley, and so with the current job market you would expect lots of good people around. It took us 5 months to find a good enough replacement for our network admin. He doesn't know Linux very well (although he's played with it), and certainly not Samba. Restricting ourselves further to candidates who also knew Samba would mean we would be still looking and I would still be providing network support rather

            • Re:One word... (Score:5, Interesting)

              by FatherOfONe ( 515801 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @03:16PM (#7455626)
              I disagree, we have a similar company and are based out of Indiana and I put out a job listing and had so many qualified resume's the next day I couldn't go through them all in a week. I began to wonder if they handed out MCSE's at Walmart. :-) I can find Linux guys who know windows and windows guys who are not so biased that they can learn SAMBA in way less than a week. I don't know how much you pay, but around here there is NO cost difference between an MCSE and a Linux/Windows guy.

              Again I have setup SAMBA now for quite a few organizations around town and have NEVER had an issue.

              When you mention that it is not configured for a corporate environment, I would disagree. I was part of a LAN team that worked on a 50k+ NT network and we used SAMBA a ton on our SUN boxes and it worked well. We had FAR FAR FAR FAR more problems with WINS on our Windows boxes than we EVER did with our SAMBA solutions.

              I want to make one point clear. Once the software is installed it runs. For 99% of the companies out there it never needs to be touched again (unless you want to). You would not need to spend 2-3 hours a week for every new project that comes up. I know because I run it. I have ran it and will continue to run it. I have ran it in 50k+ mixed networks and 5 user church networks.

              It's funny you mention UNIX and Oracle people looking for jobs, on our job posting we looked for exactly that and we got around 35% MCSE's and Microsoft Access guys. I was thinking the same thing but in reverse, :-) :-) (Mabe we should switch roles). I personally don't care if a developer,LAN Guy,DBA etc, doesn't know our specific technology. I look more for what they have shown on the job, and their ability to learn new stuff. I feel for all those poor saps that thought they would have a job forever doing Visual Basic, only to have Microsoft pull the plug on them. The good ones will show that they can learn something else. (I would suggest JAVA).... but that is me :-)
              • I guess the job market in Indiana must suck worse than San Jose. I don't think money was an option - we had applications with expectations ranging from $2K/mo (!!!!) to $120K/yr. Senior management didn't blink. I'm pretty sure the guy they hired is on 6 figures. He's good, and he's been fixing everything. I'm remote so I've never seen the infrastructure, but apparently it's a mess. Put that down to the previous guy knowing his stuff academically, but having no experience, and not being able to cope wi
                • Man I may need to move to San Jose. We get average LAN guys here for around $40k. Top guys get around $75k. But I imagine the cost of living is a little more out there. I also bet the wheather is a lot better :-)

                  Our economy here sucks big time. Indiana is a manufacturing state and specifically automotive. It has been hard here. That coupled with the fact our former Govenor was incompetent has hurt us a lot.

                  Samba 3 will hook in to Active Directory (haven't done it yet, because we are all Linux now),
        • well. if the person with the MSFT can read, it will cost him the price of this book to get him up to speed on samba. if he can't, then hire someone else :-)
        • There is a local company that supports Linux systems exclusively. In fact, we have used them in the past to handle a few of our minor areas that I hadn't the time to learn/configure myself.

          If soemthing happens to me, they are available to take over administration of the network at a rather inexpensive cost.

          As for documentation, it is my life's blood. If I didn't document anything, how would I be able to fix, restore things after a catastrophic event?

          Do you have anything else to add?

      • For our small corporate network, I have determined that it would cost us nearly $40,000 USD (Just for the Software!) to maintain a Primary and Back-up Domain Controller using Microsoft Windows 2000. This includes both the Main Server License costs and the multiple packs of CALs required to allow each user access to the servers.

        Since Windows 2000 Server with 25 CALs is about $1600 [cdw.com], and additional 20 CAL packs are $670 [cdw.com], it would seem to me that your "small corporate network" is somewhere around 1150 node

        • Re:One word... (Score:2, Insightful)

          by arctuniol ( 592174 )
          In order to set up 300 users for MSFT on my network it would have cost my company around $180,000. This is for exchange, the CAL's the microsoft guys to help set it up, and the hardware. Around 30 to 40 thousand of it was licensing costs.

          I did it with Samba, plus one extra guy to help, a full migration for about $25,000. Most of that was the extra helps salary. Let's see, that was 7 servers, two black box cabinets, two unmanaged switches, a cisco router, arcserve backup, and an 8 tape dlt 4 changer.

          I st

          • In order to set up 300 users for MSFT on my network it would have cost my company around $180,000. This is for exchange, the CAL's the microsoft guys to help set it up, and the hardware. Around 30 to 40 thousand of it was licensing costs.

            With Exchange, 300 users and 7 servers, I'd say the licensing costs on that sounds close. If I had to guess though, I'd put it closer to $50,000 (with 2 Exchange servers). But, I haven't taken the time to price it out, so we'll use your numbers.

            I did it with Samba, plus

        • ...have taken into account that the prices were going to drop, after the release of the newer Windows Server 2003, when I performed my initial analysis almost two years ago...

          Darn, by today's numbers it looks like I only saved nearly $6,000. Wait a minute... you are telling me that as I add more users, I will have to spend more money, even though the OS and hardware can handle the extra load already?

          So to add 20 more users, I would be spending an extra $670 dollars? So... If I were to add 200 users
          • Oh boy, this should be fun....Are you sure you performed an "analysis" on this?

            First off, you started your story thusly:

            For our small corporate network, I have determined that it would cost us nearly $40,000 USD (Just for the Software!) to maintain a Primary and Back-up Domain Controller using Microsoft Windows 2000. This includes both the Main Server License costs and the multiple packs of CALs required to allow each user access to the servers.

            in which you quote $40,000 in licensing costs for 2 Wind

          • Since I may have been overly harsh in my previous reply, I decided to do the legwork for you and price out your license requirements.

            For 6 Windows 2003 Servers, 2 Exchange 2003 Servers and 200 CALs to Windows Server ad Exchange Server, it'd be $24,294 under the Open License Program without Software Assurance, but including docs and CD's.

            $15,828 of this is for the Exchange 2003 side, which you didn't include in your $30,000 quote. To pit apples vs. apples, your $30,000 quote for 4 servers with 200 CALs jus

  • Pizza? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @12:58PM (#7454090) Homepage Journal
    Do they include more info on delivering Pizza [samba.org] to Samba authors?

    • Re:Pizza? (Score:2, Informative)

      by lintux ( 125434 )
      I was once told that Mr. Tridgell got enough pizza's in house for the rest of his life, so I guess they left that part out now. :-)

  • How does it compare to the online docs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ErikTheRed ( 162431 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @12:58PM (#7454096) Homepage
    I seriously considered purchasing this book the other day, however, I paused because its contents sound so similar to what you download with the product for free. If there are better explanations, information, etc., I would love to acquire it. Does anyone familiar with both have any comments?
    • I've seen many books where the contents were just copies of man pages, javadocs or online documentation. (a lot of the books reviewed here on /. are anywhere between 25-75% copies of documentation with very little original thought by the authors).

      People like to curl up with their book, so they don't mind paying for a printed copy of the online docs. Personally, I'm waiting for paper-thin organic displays to replace paper books before I move back from reading online docs at my computer to reading on my couc
    • I've also found that a non-technical manager-types will be much happier if they see that there are printed books as opposed to HTML online, no matter how good that HTML might be. It makes the product seem more "official", I guess...
    • Yes, there are docs how to set up LDAP, kerberos, etc. There are even full working configurations for a few cases - PDC, BDC, NT, w2k etc. When people asked how to setup that or that in mailing list, usual answer was to wait for this book.

    • It is the online doc (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) * <bruce@perens.com> on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:42PM (#7454501) Homepage Journal
      As good citizens of the Open Source developer community, the authors and editiors in Bruce Perens' Open Source Series place the text of their books under Open Source licenses. We think that Open Source software deserves Open Source documentation. As a result, you can already get all but 5 chapters of this book online from the Samba project, and the remaining 5 will eventually be there too. Most people buy paper because it's hard to curl up with an e-book. That seems to be working for this title, we are already in the second printing. But if you want to read it online, you are welcome to.

      Thanks

      Bruce

    • The online docs have some fixes to the documentation, but there are a few chapters that are in the book that are not available online.

      Recommended. (And if you're lucky, you might be able to get a signature from JHT who is gallivanting around the countryside.....)

    • Re:How does it compare to the online docs? (Score:4, Funny)

      by tulare ( 244053 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @04:42PM (#7456702) Journal
      I bought a dead-tree version for one very simple reason: it perches on the back lid of a porcelin office-type chair known to contain liquids on a frequent or constant basis. Call it insurance. Here's my math:

      Loss of the dead-tree version should it fall in: US$50

      Loss of the laptop should it fall in: US$1400 plus hundreds of hours of lost productivity that went in as well.

      Kind of made the choice an easy one.
  • Samba is excellent, but the documentation leaves a little to be desired if you're not well up on the Windows platform. I'm sure all the Samba gurus will now disagree :-)

    Just a big thankyou to the Samba team as well - a truly excellent piece of software :-)

    Simon

  • I like the part... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:05PM (#7454165)
    where the acquire, compile, install instructions are in the appendix. So many books on Linux and Linux apps usually waste several of the first few chapters on this. Happily, Linux an Linux app installation has improved to the point that any more than a paragraph or two on compiling and installation is a waste.
    • If you're using a distribution with a reasonable package manager (read: anything except Slackware) it shouldn't even be that difficult. Many distros come with it preinstalled these days anyway.

      • If you're using a distribution with a reasonable package manager (read: anything except Slackware)

        Hey! I take offense to that! My laptop runs Slack and I have a wonderfule package system. It's kinda like gentoo. You just type the following commands in the following order:

        • wget $place_to_get_package_from
        • tar zxvf (or maybe jxvf) $package_name
        • cd
        • less README
        • less INSTALL
        • ./configure $with_build_flags
        • make
        • su
        • make install
        • exit
        • exit

        How much easier do you want them to make it? (tounge planted firmly i

        • Wow... I really need to start sleeping more... please note the following corrections to the above: wonderful is spelled wonderful, not wonderfule, the cd in my ul should be cd $package_directory, the and between corrupt and RPM should be an an, and the cause after some day should be causes.

          Five errors even after a preview... the slashcode team needs to add an "edit post" function for people like me. ;-)

  • For those unable to buy it.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by geoff313 ( 718010 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:07PM (#7454180) Journal
    While it is an excellent idea to financially support the Samba project, not only because of what they are doing but for how well they do it, but for those who are looking for who can't afford this book essentially the same document can be found here [samba.org]. Keep in mind this was the pre-release version of the published book. And I would just like to say thanks to the Samba team for all the excellent work they have done!!!

  • This is not a review (Score:3, Informative)

    by shaneb11716 ( 451351 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:19PM (#7454298)
    It's a copy/paste from the table of contents.

    But anyway, the problem I have with this book is that as you read about configuration in more detail as the book progresses, it sort of assumes you understand various MS networked file system concepts.

    I think the book could definitely use either an intro chapter or at least an appendix that discusses the core concepts of SMB first. Then I could make better decisions on deployment.

    -Shane

  • NFS? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by mark_space2001 ( 570644 )
    This is kinda a funny coincidence. I was just looking yesterday for an easy, free solution to mounting NFS drives on windows. I have a small network at home and I don't want to go through the trouble of installing Samba on my server / NAT box, which runs Linux. I already export NFS mounts and I'd like to continue to use them.

    So does anyone know of an easy, free solution for NFS on Windows? All the ones I could find were comercial products. Emphasis on free, this is home and I just don't want to pay f

    • Re:NFS? (Score:2, Informative)

      by jbwolfe ( 241413 )
      This may not be what your after, but take a look here...
      http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/unix proresour ces/
      Shipping will go about ten dollars, but the software is free.
    • #include standard.disclaimer.h

      I'm shooting from the hip here, so if I get this wrong, don't shoot me..

      First, set up your NFS as normal, between your *nix boxen. Once you have that, set up the exports you just mounted as samba shares. The windows boxen will be none the wiser.

    • Re:NFS? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A couple of the preceding posts have given you the answer, but in case it isn't entirely obvious, here is a rephrasing.

      There is no particular value in having the Windows systems try to function as NFS clients. Instead, have them mount shares from a Samba server. That server, being a Unix system, can share any NFS filesystems it happens to mount. It's trivially easy.

    • Re:NFS? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cheetahfeathers ( 93473 )
      Samba really is your easiest/fastest/most supported solution, for this case. It works well. We use it in our corporate enviornment. Mostly a Sun shop with NFS mounted home dirs and software shares and such, but there are windows folks out there that want the same home dir. We support many hundreds this way.

      The Samba section is pretty minimal to setup, for NFS. If you want printing and domains and such, it
      starts to get more complicated.
      • Two big things dissuade me from using Samba. First is installaion. Step two right after download is "compile", and that tends to make it a non-trivial package to use.

        The other is the mere presence of the whole windows domain groupware print etc. stuff. Even if I don't use it, it's still in the executable, and I still have to read the documentation to make sure I have it disabled properly.

        Well, I've downloaded Samba, so we'll see how easy it if for me to compile, install and configure. Crossing my fi

      • Well, that wasn't the worst ever experience of my life. But it was pretty close.

        FYI, samba is not the easiest solution for anything, ever, period. To many fucking configuration options. Maybe if you set up samba servers for a living, but I don't. NFS was simple enough that I could follow the HOW-TO and get it working, samba there's no hope, unless you want to talk me through the options.

        I think I'll try an ftp server and just browse it on windows. That sounds easy.

  • Need more of the same (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ridgelift ( 228977 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:31PM (#7454396)
    The book is written for people in the "Windows world" who want to take a look into the services and possibilities Samba offers for them.

    We need more books that help Windows users make the change to Linux. Although I probably wouldn't benefit from this book since I'm now used to reading the documentation myself, I would have appreciated such a text a few short years ago.

    Making the transition from Windows to Linux can be a lot like learning to ski. Windows is all about bunny hills, where you can learn to snow plow quickly and initially have some fun, but it gets boring fast. Linux, on the other hand, is like a full mountain without proper directions. Some people start with Linux and find the green runs and have fun. Others end up beginning on a double diamond run, and hate it because it was such a harrowing and confusing experience.

    Books like these help those bunny hill Windows users find the Linux green runs, and help them advance to the blue and black diamond aspects of Linux at a controlled pace.
    • We need more books that help Windows users make the change to Linux. Although I probably wouldn't benefit from this book since I'm now used to reading the documentation myself, I would have appreciated such a text a few short years ago.

      I don't think they'll help much. People that read documentation are few and far between. Those that actually buy those book are even more rare. Like it or not, Windows has taught people that you shouldn't need to read a manual to run anything and application is broken if yo
    • Linux for Windows Administrators, 2nd Ed [sybex.com] by Mark Minasi is probably a fairly close fit. It helped me over some very rough spots in my home network migration. Mr. Minasi is something of an authority in the NT world--his Windows 2000 series is also excellent.

      Only downside is that it's getting a little dated--how about a 3rd edition, Mark? =)

  • Good thing we have only experts writing the HOWTOs. Now when newbies are trying to use samba they can read difficult language written by people who can't relate to simple end users, tied with a bunch of information we don't need! Thanks Linux community, this is so helpful :D

    • Re:Oh goodie (Score:2, Insightful)

      by vlankhaar ( 723712 )
      I would be very interested in seeing you write something like the HOWTO Collection. Yes, I'll admit, it was written by experts, but the language presented here is certainly not by any stretch of the imagination "difficult language."

      I think your comment about the authors being unable to relate to simple end uers is very unfair. John and Jelmer, and indeed all of the other contributors, do an amazing job relating to end users.

      Like a good open source project, this book was composed in such a way that input f

  • Why do we go through this every time? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    BN, Amazon. You'd think they're the only games in town.

    <sigh>

    Try looking at addall.com, bestwebbuys.com, and bookpool.com; prices are $30.19, $33.52, and $31.50, respectively.
  • The book is under an Open Source license, as are all titles in Bruce Perens' Open Source Series, and the remaining 5 chapters that aren't already checked into Samba CVS will be there soon. Unencrypted PDF will also be made available.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Remember folks... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by JShadow ( 192326 )
    This is a book primarily for WINDOWS users looking to migrate to a Samba server. As a windows user myself, the HOWTO on the web is REALLY helpfull to me as I get SAMBA up and running with my MS network, so I'm sure the book will be just as helpful, perhaps even more. :)

    Also, I'm glad to see the HOWTO come out in book form, since sometimes it's really handy to have the book there in front of you while you're pounding away at the config.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Available Online (Score:3, Informative)

    by deacon_jay ( 612834 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:44PM (#7454520)
    I just went through a new Samba install and this documentation was a great help.
    It's all available online from samba.org:
    HTML Version [samba.org] | PDF Version [samba.org]
    Note: There are a couple of chapters that are missing from these versions but all-in-all it should answer most of your questions.
  • As I was just finishing up a major project I've been working on for the past few months, I decided it's about time to look into moving my NT4 PDC to Samba, which I've been intending to do for a year. Just last night I was looking at samba.org, and saw this book, and was wondering if it was worth buying ;)
  • Is there a free version of this? Or is it just Man pages for poor admins?
  • My only thing is I wanna know how to transfer the windows login account's passwords to samba. there seems to be no way to do this. all you can do is set all user accounts on the linux server to a default password and let all your users know. sucks balls when you have to migrate hundreds of users.
  • Overstock.com [overstock.com]. $28.79 USD... nice, real nice.
  • Chapter 3, Server Types and Security Modes, is available online for free [windowsitlibrary.com].
  • John spoke last night at my user group (BNUG [bnug.org] meeting, on Open Source software in general and on Samba's development process and features. He was a quite informative and interesting speaker, and folks picked up a few copies of the book at the meeting.

    Though the entire book is available online (minus a few chapters that will soon be put in), I think it's worthy to support authors and publishers who put information out there for free access. I've got my copy of the book on order (would have picked it up las
  • John Terpstra, the author of this book, will be at SCALE 2003 [socallinuxexpo.org] doing a book signing. He will also be giving two talks: -Samba-3: Integration and Migration Options -FLOSS: No Roadblocks Ahead If you want to meet John at SCALE you can get a free exhibit hall pass by pre-registering on the SCALE website with the promo code "free". Those who want to hear his talks can use the promo code: "invtd" for a discount.
  • I've been wanting to set up a PDC with Samba but have discovered that 2.2.8 is a bit limited (i.e. no NT Users and Groups aside from "Domain Users" and "Domain Admins").. is it safe to upgrade to Samba 3 yet? Is it reliable?
    • Samba 3.0 has been in production use by some brave people for over half a year.

      The 3.0.0 release was very good; the only major annoyance/bug is one dealing with Microsoft Office renaming files.

      See this post [samba.org] for some detail.

      There is a patch available that fixes that issue.

      I'm running 3.0 and it works fine (but not so sure about 3.0.1pre2....)
  • John Terpstra [socallinuxexpo.com], co-founder of the Samba-Team [samba.org], will be speaking at the Southern California Linux Expo [socallinuxexpo.com] on November 22nd at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. John will be giving an overview of Samba 3 including the ability to integrate into an Active Directory enviroment. Autographed copies of "The Official Samba 3 Howto and Reference Guide" will be available for purchase. Regular priced and student priced tickets giving full access to the event are still available. Free expo only
  • I took my FreeBSD 5.1 box, installed Samba. Set it up as a PDC, joined my XP box to the domain, setup roaming profiles for the couple of users and shared them out. Next, I setup CUPS and setup/shared my HP printer, and installed the drivers so that Windows machines can 'double-click' on the printer and have it setup right away for them. CUPS + Samba seem to integrate pretty well, and it took the mess out of hand crafting the printcap file and samba printer definitions. "printing = cups" and I'm done with it

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