samba - Feb 2001 - using samba and smbfs as a replacement for nfs ?

Hello,
i have searched the archives, but alas i did not find very mutch
information on this subject.

I read that smbfs always opens a file read/write. Will the Samba Server
at the other end lock the file so that no other user can access it ?

I have a few Application Servers, and i want them to store all there
information on one central data server. One way is using nfs, but as i
have read the implementation on linux could be better, and write
performance is pretty bad.
I use Samba at home for my W2k network and am very happy with it..
What i am looking for is an answer to the question, can samba and smbfs
in a pure linux envioremnt be a good (fast & stable) alternative in a
mission critical system ?

Anyone any comments or ideas ?
Are there any other possablities that are stable ?

PS: I have looked at CODA, it will not fit my needs (max disk size ~50
GB)

Regards

Gavin Woodhatch

Space4U LLC

On Wed, 28 Feb 2001, Gavin wrote:
> I have a few Application Servers, and i want them to store all there
> information on one central data server. One way is using nfs, but as i
> have read the implementation on linux could be better, and write
> performance is pretty bad.
What makes you think smbfs has better performance than nfs?
Samba and smb perhaps, but I doubt smbfs is better or even good.

I think samba/smbfs is a bad idea to connect 2 unix machines.

Using samba and smbfs means that you will map unix ideas (permissions,
file locking which smbfs does not yet implement, ...) to their windows
counterparts, and then back to unix again. You are going to lose
information there and you may run into problems.


As for stability. smbfs before 2.2.18/2.4.something could crash your
machine or possibly even corrupt random pages of memory if you nested
directories too deep.
(One way to do this is to have a symlink pointing to '.' on a samba
server
 and then do 'find /', the symlink represents an infinitly deep
directory
 hierarchy)

Problems are being fixed, but I suspect nfs is significantly more stable
since it is more used and more people are working on it.


It shouldn't be too difficult for you to set up two boxes and test smbfs
vs nfs performance. http://www.iozone.org/ is one benchmark tool. I
haven't tested that myself but I plan too. I'd be surprised if nfs
didn't
beat the *--*- out of smbfs.

/Urban