samba - Oct 2002 - Running smb without nmb? (Linux Suse 8.1 feature)

I recently upgraded my Linux distro to SuSE 8.1 which
came w/samba 2.2.5.

A feature of the upgrade was that it 'split' the startup
script for samba from 1 script for _smb_ & _nmb_ to 2 scripts.

Now the prologue (used by insserv to create the numbered startup
scripts with dynamic numbering based on dependencies in the prologues
of all the startup scripts for a given run level) says that
nmb is a prereq for smb.

That's nice.  

For some reason, though, the upgrade process didn't bother to
chkconfig nmb to 'on'.  So I had no end of headaches having assumed
nmb was running -- since simply running the startup script for 'smb'
would
tell me if there was an error for nmb or smb on startup (now I get
to run two scripts or create a special inclusive script).

Ok -- enough of my whining.  Question is this: is there any good reason
for splitting the two or making so one is runnable w/o the other?
Just because it caused me a few days of grief (not continuous, but 
intermixed with several other tasks) doesn't mean it's not really a
useful feature --- for *some* reason.

I think it is a bug in SuSE's startup scripts that it doesn't check
pre-reqs at run-time, but only during the static script setup, but 
that's just my opinion based on fault-tolerance.

So how/why would splitting these scripts be a good thing? 

Thanks,
linda

p.s. -- as for my question of why an NMB lookup of a domain name would
result in the PDC sending back ICMP-not reachachable packets -- this
appears to have been the culprit.

[samba-technical has been removed from addresses because
it's for discussing source code.]

l. a. walsh wrote:
> I recently upgraded my Linux distro to SuSE 8.1 which
> came w/samba 2.2.5.
> 
> A feature of the upgrade was that it 'split' the startup
> script for samba from 1 script for _smb_ & _nmb_ to 2 scripts.
Wow, you are right.  I have an installation of SuSE 8.1 here,
and had to boot it up to check.  Looks like I have a note to
add to Chapter 2...
> Question is this: is there any good reason
> for splitting the two or making so one is runnable w/o the other?
AFAIK, SuSE is the only Linux distribution that does this.  But ...
now I'll have to check a few others and see.

I'd guess that they split them up (having both a smb and nmb
script in /etc/init.d) to allow the two daemons to be controlled
independently.  That is, you can do a

# /etc/init.d/nmb restart

and restart just nmbd, without having to restart smbd.
> So how/why would splitting these scripts be a good thing? 
I think it's a matter of opinion whether or not this is better.
Obviously, someone at SuSE thinks it is! :)
I'd suggest writing a script that does something like:

#!/bin/bash

/etc/init.d/smb $1
/etc/init.d/nmb $1

That way, it will work like Red Hat and other distributions,
so you can start/stop/restart/(etc.) Samba with one command.

Jay Ts

[sorry - bit of a belated reply - I have a bit of a backlog to read]

On 23rd.Oct.2002, Linda Walsh asked :
> I recently upgraded my Linux distro to SuSE 8.1 which
> came w/samba 2.2.5.
> 
> A feature of the upgrade was that it 'split' the startup
> script for samba from 1 script for _smb_ & _nmb_ to 2 scripts.
> 
> So how/why would splitting these scripts be a good thing? 
I can think of one good reason why a sysadmin might want to *re*start nmb
without restarting smb - loss of WINS registration.

For us, that happens periodically to the registration of our Samba boxen
with our corporate Windows WINS servers, and  I _think_ the underlying cause
is that the WINS servers get rebooted.  The first we notice is that calls
start coming in from people who can no longer map network drives to the
Sambas, or can no longer contact development webservers on the same boxes by
NetBIOS name alone.  A simple restart of nmb solves the problem, and
restarting smb at the same time would be both unnecessary and undesirable.

Nick Boyce
EDS Southwest Solution Centre, Bristol, UK