<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> [Chapter 1] 1.7 What's New in Samba 2.0?</title><META NAME="DC.title" CONTENT=""><META NAME="DC.creator" CONTENT=""><META NAME="DC.publisher" CONTENT="O'Reilly & Associates, Inc."><META NAME="DC.date" CONTENT="1999-11-05T21:30:01Z"><META NAME="DC.type" CONTENT="Text.Monograph"><META NAME="DC.format" CONTENT="text/html" SCHEME="MIME"><META NAME="DC.source" CONTENT="" SCHEME="ISBN"><META NAME="DC.language" CONTENT="en-US"><META NAME="generator" CONTENT="Jade 1.1/O'Reilly DocBook 3.0 to HTML 4.0"></head> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" link="#990000" vlink="#0000CC"> <table BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" width="90%"> <tr> <td width="25%" valign="TOP"> <img hspace=10 vspace=10 src="gifs/samba.s.gif" alt="Using Samba" align=left valign=top border=0> </td> <td height="105" valign="TOP"> <br> <H2>Using Samba</H2> <font size="-1"> Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown, Peter Kelly <br>1st Edition November 1999 <br>1-56592-449-5, Order Number: 4495 <br>416 pages, $34.95 </font> <p> <a href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/">Buy the hardcopy</a> <p><a href="index.html">Table of Contents</a> </td> </tr> </table> <hr size=1 noshade> <!--sample chapter begins --> <center> <DIV CLASS="htmlnav"> <TABLE WIDTH="515" BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="0"> <TR> <TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="172"> <A CLASS="sect1" HREF="ch01_06.html" TITLE="1.6 How Can I Get Samba?"> <IMG SRC="gifs/txtpreva.gif" ALT="Previous: 1.6 How Can I Get Samba?" BORDER="0"></a></td><TD ALIGN="CENTER" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="171"> <B> <FONT FACE="ARIEL,HELVETICA,HELV,SANSERIF" SIZE="-1"> <A CLASS="chapter" REL="up" HREF="ch01_01.html" TITLE="1. Learning the Samba"> Chapter 1<br> Learning the Samba</a></font></b></td><TD ALIGN="RIGHT" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="172"> <A CLASS="sect1" HREF="ch01_08.html" TITLE="1.8 And That's Not All..."> <IMG SRC="gifs/txtnexta.gif" ALT="Next: 1.8 And That's Not All..." BORDER="0"></a></td></tr></table> <hr noshade size=1></center> </div> <blockquote> <div> <H2 CLASS="sect1"> <A CLASS="title" NAME="ch01-40528"> 1.7 What's New in Samba 2.0?</a></h2><P CLASS="para">Samba 2.0 was an eagerly-awaited package. The big additions to Samba 2.0 are more concrete support for NT Domains and the new Samba Web Administration Tool (SWAT), a browser-based utility for configuring Samba. However, there are dozens of other improvements that were introduced in the summer and fall of 1998. </p><DIV CLASS="sect2"> <H3 CLASS="sect2"> <A CLASS="title" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937019"> 1.7.1 NT Domains</a></h3><P CLASS="para"> Samba's support for NT Domains (starting with version 2.0.<EM CLASS="emphasis"> x</em>) produced a big improvement: it allows SMB servers to use its authentication mechanisms, which is essential for future NT compatibility, and to support <I CLASS="firstterm"> NT domain logons</i>. Domain logons allow a user to log in to a Windows NT domain and use all the computers in the domain without logging into them individually. Previous to version 2.0.0, Samba supported Windows 95/98 logon services, but not NT domain logons. Although domain logons support is not complete is Samba 2.0, it is partially implemented.</p></div><DIV CLASS="sect2"> <H3 CLASS="sect2"> <A CLASS="title" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937021"> 1.7.2 Ease of Administration</a></h3><P CLASS="para">SWAT, the Samba Web Administration Tool, makes it easy to set up a server and change its configuration, without giving up the simple text-based configuration file. SWAT provides a graphical interface to the resources that Samba shares with its clients. In addition, SWAT saves considerable experimentation and memory work in setting up or changing configurations across the network. You can even create an initial setup with SWAT and then modify the file later by hand, or vice versa. Samba will not complain.</p><P CLASS="para"> On the compilation side, GNU <I CLASS="filename"> autoconf</i> is now used to make the task of initial compilation and setup easier so you can get to SWAT quicker.</p></div><DIV CLASS="sect2"> <H3 CLASS="sect2"> <A CLASS="title" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937024"> 1.7.3 Performance</a></h3><P CLASS="para"> There are major performance and scalability increases in Samba: the code has been reorganized and <EM CLASS="emphasis"> nmbd</em> (the Samba name service daemon) heavily rewritten:</p><UL CLASS="itemizedlist"> <LI CLASS="listitem"> <P CLASS="para"> <A CLASS="listitem" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937026"> </a>Name/browsing service now supports approximately 35,000 simultaneous clients.</p></li><LI CLASS="listitem"> <P CLASS="para"> <A CLASS="listitem" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937027"> </a>File and print services support 500 concurrent users from a single medium-sized server without noticeable performance degradation.</p></li><LI CLASS="listitem"> <P CLASS="para"> <A CLASS="listitem" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937028"> </a>Linux/Samba on identical hardware now consistently performs better than NT Server. And best of all, Samba is improving.</p></li><LI CLASS="listitem"> <P CLASS="para"> <A CLASS="listitem" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937029"> </a>Improved "opportunistic" locking allows client machines to cache entire files locally, greatly improving speed without running the risk of accidentally overwriting the cached files.</p></li></ul></div><DIV CLASS="sect2"> <H3 CLASS="sect2"> <A CLASS="title" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937030"> 1.7.4 More Features</a></h3><P CLASS="para"> There are several additional features in Samba 2.0. You can now have multiple Samba aliases on the same machine, each pretending to be a different server, a feature similar to virtual hosts in modern web servers. This allows a host to serve multiple departments and groups, or provide disk shares with normal username/password security while also providing printers to everyone without any security. Printing has been changed to make it easier for Unix System V owners: Samba can now find the available printers automatically, just as it does with Berkeley-style printing. In addition, Samba now has the capability to use multiple code pages, so it can be used with non-European languages, and to use the Secure Sockets Layer protocol (SSL) to encrypt all the data it sends across the Internet, instead of just passwords.[<A CLASS="footnote" HREF="#ch01-pgfId-938280">7</a>]</p><BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="footnote"> <DIV CLASS="footnote"> <P CLASS="para"> <A CLASS="footnote" NAME="ch01-pgfId-938280">[7]</a> If you reside in the United States, there are some federal rules and regulations dealing with strong cryptography. We'll talk about his later when we set up Samba and SSL in <a href="appa_01.html"><b>Appendix A, <CITE CLASS="appendix"> Configuring Samba with SSL</cite></b></a>.</p></div></blockquote></div><DIV CLASS="sect2"> <H3 CLASS="sect2"> <A CLASS="title" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937035"> 1.7.5 Compatibility Improvements</a></h3><P CLASS="para"> At the same time as it's becoming more capable, Samba is also becoming more compatible with Windows NT. Samba has always supported Microsoft-style password encryption. It now provides tools and options for changing over to Microsoft encryption, and for keeping the Unix and Microsoft password files synchronized while doing so. Finally, a Samba master browser can be instructed to hunt down and synchronize itself with other SMB servers on different LANs, allowing SMB to work seamlessly across multiple networks. Samba uses a different method of accomplishing this from the Microsoft method, which is undocumented.</p></div><DIV CLASS="sect2"> <H3 CLASS="sect2"> <A CLASS="title" NAME="ch01-pgfId-937039"> 1.7.6 Smbwrapper</a></h3><P CLASS="para"> Finally, there is an entirely new version of the Unix client called <I CLASS="firstterm"> smbwrapper</i>. Instead of a kernel module that allows Linux to act as a Samba client, there is now a command-line entry to load the library that provides a complete SMB filesystem on some brands of Unix. Once loaded, the command <CODE CLASS="literal"> ls</code> <CODE CLASS="literal"> /smb</code> will list all the machines in your workgroup, and <CODE CLASS="literal"> cd</code> <CODE CLASS="literal">/smb/</code><CODE CLASS="replaceable"><I>server_name</i></code><CODE CLASS="literal">/</code><CODE CLASS="replaceable"><I>share_name</i></code> will take you to a particular share (shared directory), similar to the Network File System (NFS). As of this writing, <EM CLASS="emphasis"> smbwrapper</em> currently runs on Linux, Solaris, SunOS 4, IRIX, and OSF/1, and is expected to run on several more operating systems in the near future.</p></div></div></blockquote> <div> <center> <hr noshade size=1><TABLE WIDTH="515" BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="0"> <TR> <TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="172"> <A CLASS="sect1" HREF="ch01_06.html" TITLE="1.6 How Can I Get Samba?"> <IMG SRC="gifs/txtpreva.gif" ALT="Previous: 1.6 How Can I Get Samba?" BORDER="0"></a></td><TD ALIGN="CENTER" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="171"> <A CLASS="book" HREF="index.html" TITLE=""> <IMG SRC="gifs/txthome.gif" ALT="" BORDER="0"></a></td><TD ALIGN="RIGHT" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="172"> <A CLASS="sect1" HREF="ch01_08.html" TITLE="1.8 And That's Not All..."> <IMG SRC="gifs/txtnexta.gif" ALT="Next: 1.8 And That's Not All..." BORDER="0"></a></td></tr><TR> <TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="172"> 1.6 How Can I Get Samba?</td><TD ALIGN="CENTER" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="171"> <A CLASS="index" HREF="inx.html" TITLE="Book Index"> <IMG SRC="gifs/index.gif" ALT="Book Index" BORDER="0"></a></td><TD ALIGN="RIGHT" VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="172"> 1.8 And That's Not All...</td></tr></table><hr noshade size=1></center> </div> <!-- End of sample chapter --> <CENTER> <FONT SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"> <A HREF="http://www.oreilly.com/"> <B>O'Reilly Home</B></A> <B> | </B> <A HREF="http://www.oreilly.com/sales/bookstores"> <B>O'Reilly Bookstores</B></A> <B> | </B> <A HREF="http://www.oreilly.com/order_new/"> <B>How to Order</B></A> <B> | </B> <A HREF="http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/contact.html"> <B>O'Reilly Contacts<BR></B></A> <A HREF="http://www.oreilly.com/international/"> <B>International</B></A> <B> | </B> <A HREF="http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/about.html"> <B>About O'Reilly</B></A> <B> | </B> <A HREF="http://www.oreilly.com/affiliates.html"> <B>Affiliated Companies</B></A><p> <EM>© 1999, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.</EM> </FONT> </CENTER> </BODY> </html>