Hi, I have a number of web servers that mount their /htdocs (and /log and /cgi-bin) directories from a large file server. I am currently using NFS for this. The web servers are Linux, the file server a Sun E450. NFS seems dreadfully slow, and I keep reading about how it doesn't do file locking. Is there a good reason not to simply use samba, and share the volumes with samba from the Sun, and use smbmount on the linux machines? Will this not be faster? (It could hardly be slower). It seems perverse to use a Win32 protocol between to *nix machines, but NFS just seems very very slow. Can anyone think of a good reason _not_ to use samba in this situation? Thanks. -------- Jon Peterson Head of Development AMXstudios London, UK +44 171 613 5300 www.amxstudios.com><> <>< ><> <>< ><> <>< ><> <>< ><> <>< ><> <>< ><> <>< ><> <>< ><>"Don't count your blessings before they hatch."
> I have a number of web servers that mount their /htdocs (and /log and > /cgi-bin) directories from a large file server. I am currently using NFS > for this. The web servers are Linux, the file server a Sun E450. NFS seems > dreadfully slow, and I keep reading about how it doesn't do file locking. > > Is there a good reason not to simply use samba, and share the volumes with > samba from the Sun, and use smbmount on the linux machines? Will this not > be faster? (It could hardly be slower). > > It seems perverse to use a Win32 protocol between to *nix machines, but NFS > just seems very very slow. > > Can anyone think of a good reason _not_ to use samba in this situation?I guess samba would be faster than NFS, but why don't you just put /htdocs and /cgi-bin on a local disk of the web-server. This seems much cleaner to me. If you need to change the web-site quite often, you could either export /htdoc and /cgi-bin from the web-server via NFS, samba, marw_nwe(novell-emulation),... or you edit the files on the Sun like you do now, and rsync them with the files on the web-server (you find info about rsync on the internet). I guess you share the /log dir to have one machine, where every server logs... well syslogd has this feature already built-in.. it can log to any server you want it to... Hope this helps.... Florian
Jon,> Can anyone think of a good reason _not_ to use samba in this situation?Well, the biggest reason *I* can think of is that NFS retains the Unix permissions and ownership on files that you copy between Linux and the Sun system. Using Samba you will lose the Unix persmissions on files (i.e. you might lose the eXecute bit on a file), as well as the ownership of the file. If that is information you need to retain, I wouldn't use Samba between Unix boxes. Another reason is that I have personally experienced some problems using smbfs in Linux 2.0.35, with the smbmount utility. In my case, I am mounting shares from a NT server to the Linux system. What happens is that if the NT server is ever rebooted, or network problems occur, the shares mounted on Linux do not recover. I.e. in order for the files to be visible again, I have to unmount and remount the shares. And sometimes I've had operations like a recursive find or grep command on a mounted NT share die, when the share was "not really there", and then I *can't* kill the find or grep, and therefore I cannot do an unmount of the share (because its in use), and end up rebooting my Linux system in order to see the NT shares. I've not seen this kind of strange behaviour with NFS. That said, I've always been told that the NFS subsystem is one of the weakest parts of Linux. I.e. it has performance issues, and needs rework. -- /------------------------------------------------\ | Jim Morris | Business: jmorris@rtc-group.com | | | Personal: Jim@Morris.net | |------------------------------------------------| | World Wide Web: http://Jim.Morris.net | \------------------------------------------------/
You asked: | Is there a good reason not to simply use samba, and share the volumes | with samba from the Sun, and use smbmount on the linux machines? Will | this not be faster? (It could hardly be slower). It's perfectly doable, but probably better to look and see why the fileserver's delivered performance is low. I reccomend Adrian Cockroft's book for tuning Suns. an old reference is http://www.sun.com/smi/ssoftpress/books/Cockcroft/Cockcroft.html The easy way to improve performance is by caching on the client (the webserver in this case). Either cachefs or Samba will give you that, but cachefs will keep inactive files around longer. --dave -- David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify some people 185 Ellerslie Ave., | and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain Willowdale, Ontario | davecb@hobbes.ss.org, canada.sun.com N2M 1Y3. 416-223-8968 | http://java.science.yorku.ca/~davecb
Hi, if you have that slow a speed with NFS, you should check your configuration. While Linux doesn't have a very good NFS server, the client code is very fast. And Solaris is one of the best NFS server around, especially with a E450... Check that your web server mounts the filesystems with the options "rsize=8192,wsize=8192", it's the only caveat we have here when mounting a filesystem on Linux from Solaris. And here, it runs a at near wire-speed.> Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998 12:06:12 +0200 > From: "Florian G. Pflug" <fgp@fgp.priv.at> > To: samba@samba.anu.edu.au > Subject: Samba replacing NFS > Message-ID: <19981024120612.A204@fgp.priv.at> > > > I have a number of web servers that mount their /htdocs (and /log and > > /cgi-bin) directories from a large file server. I am currently using NFS > > for this. The web servers are Linux, the file server a Sun E450. NFS seems > > dreadfully slow, and I keep reading about how it doesn't do file locking. > > > > Is there a good reason not to simply use samba, and share the volumes with > > samba from the Sun, and use smbmount on the linux machines? Will this not > > be faster? (It could hardly be slower). > > > > It seems perverse to use a Win32 protocol between to *nix machines, but NFS > > just seems very very slow. > > > > Can anyone think of a good reason _not_ to use samba in this situation? > > > I guess samba would be faster than NFS, but why don't you just put /htdocs > and /cgi-bin on a local disk of the web-server. This seems much cleaner to > me. If you need to change the web-site quite often, you could either export > /htdoc and /cgi-bin from the web-server via NFS, samba, > marw_nwe(novell-emulation),... or you edit the files on the Sun like you do > now, and rsync them with the files on the web-server (you find info about > rsync on the internet). > > I guess you share the /log dir to have one machine, where every server > logs... well syslogd has this feature already built-in.. it can log to any > server you want it to... > > Hope this helps.... Florian-- Christophe Dupre Analyste de systemes, RISQ inc. 550 Sherbrooke ouest, suite 250-ouest Tel: (514) 845-7181, ext 237 Montreal, QC CANADA FAX: (514) 845-8083 "Nous ne sommes pas libres de ne pas etre libres, nous sommes obliges de l'etre" - Fernando Savater