samba - Jan 2005 - Thank you! Upgrade from Novell 4.11 is complete

I just wanted to write to you guys and thank you for all of your help and 
hand-holding as I upgraded our company's file server from a Pentium 200mmx 
running Novell 4.11 to a nice P4 server running Linux and Samba 3.0.9.  It 
took from September to the end of December to accomplish it, but I have 
gotten compliments from several users about how smooth the transition was.

My environment includes every version of Windows since (and including) Windows 
95.  I even have a computerized saw on my network, and it is happily getting 
its cut files from the Samba server.  I only have about 60 users, so I guess 
it is a much smaller install than most.  But Samba is running extremely lean, 
and not bogging the server down at all.

Below is a brief summary of what I did:

1.  Used 'rsync' to keep all of the data on the new server up-to-date
with
what was on the Novell server so the users would not lose any data in the 
transition.

2.  Completely rearranged the shares and the way they are presented to much 
users, while providing some shares to certain users who needed to see certain 
drive letters for their ancient (RBase, QBasic) applications to work.

3.  Improved security and eliminated home directories for users who have not 
worked here for years and years.

4.  All printer drivers except for the pen plotter are now stored on the 
server.  Printing via CUPS+Samba, and the print performance has outstripped 
the Novell print server by thousands of percents.

5.  LDAP for authentication to not only Samba, but most UNIX servers, incoming 
and outgoing mail servers, and implemented a searchable white-pages while I 
was at it.

6.  I am using Kixtart for login scripts.  Drive letters are assigned based on 
group membership and machine type, and roaming profiles are implemented with 
folder redirection for non-laptop machines.

My users are very very happy, and my boss is extremely pleased with the 
price-point and the performance.  I just wanted to let you guys hear of a 
Samba success story.  I will be happy to offer any advice for what I have 
learned along the way.

Appreciatively,
Misty

On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 10:51 -0500, Misty Stanley-Jones
wrote:
> I just wanted to write to you guys and thank you for all of your help and 
> hand-holding as I upgraded our company's file server from a Pentium
200mmx
> running Novell 4.11 to a nice P4 server running Linux and Samba 3.0.9.  It 
> took from September to the end of December to accomplish it, but I have 
> gotten compliments from several users about how smooth the transition was.
> 
> My environment includes every version of Windows since (and including)
Windows
> 95.  I even have a computerized saw on my network, and it is happily
getting
> its cut files from the Samba server.  I only have about 60 users, so I
guess
> it is a much smaller install than most.  But Samba is running extremely
lean,
> and not bogging the server down at all.
> 
> Below is a brief summary of what I did:
> 
> 1.  Used 'rsync' to keep all of the data on the new server
up-to-date with
> what was on the Novell server so the users would not lose any data in the 
> transition.
> 
> 2.  Completely rearranged the shares and the way they are presented to much
> users, while providing some shares to certain users who needed to see
certain
> drive letters for their ancient (RBase, QBasic) applications to work.
> 
> 3.  Improved security and eliminated home directories for users who have
not
> worked here for years and years.
> 
> 4.  All printer drivers except for the pen plotter are now stored on the 
> server.  Printing via CUPS+Samba, and the print performance has outstripped
> the Novell print server by thousands of percents.
> 
> 5.  LDAP for authentication to not only Samba, but most UNIX servers,
incoming
> and outgoing mail servers, and implemented a searchable white-pages while I
> was at it.
> 
> 6.  I am using Kixtart for login scripts.  Drive letters are assigned based
on
> group membership and machine type, and roaming profiles are implemented
with
> folder redirection for non-laptop machines.
> 
> My users are very very happy, and my boss is extremely pleased with the 
> price-point and the performance.  I just wanted to let you guys hear of a 
> Samba success story.  I will be happy to offer any advice for what I have 
> learned along the way.
I am sure that John Terpstra and Jeremy Allison would like to see you
publish an in-depth Success Story article or HOWTO to document your
progression (including the rsync, Kixtart, LDAP for everything
(including WP publishing), Of course anonymizing the configs and names
to protect the innocent (or guilty as the case may be) 

There might even be some people willing to pay a modest amount of
publishing costs to you or your company, providing it be released
similarly as John has done Samba by Example.

I know, if it were edited well and had good content, I'd be extremely
interested in purchasing a book on it. I just like to have things around
to refer to. You never know, you might get feedback on how to improve
your design and/or performance for little work or a small change doing
both.

I'd have done the same thing, but I am being blocked by the place I
wrote my write up for (as part of doing the work), as they claim it
property of their's. They will not allow any configs or setup info out,
though completely re-written without ANY of their info in it, for Samba
and AD integration, for logins on Windows and Unix using kerberos
tickets that are automagically generated, being able to login to other
unix machines from other unix machines without a password forwarding
credentials, etc... It is a really smooth setup.
-- 
greg, greg@gregfolkert.net

The technology that is
Stronger, better, faster: Linux
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On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 10:51:05AM -0500, Misty Stanley-Jones
wrote:
> 
> My users are very very happy, and my boss is extremely pleased with the 
> price-point and the performance.  I just wanted to let you guys hear of a 
> Samba success story.  I will be happy to offer any advice for what I have 
> learned along the way.
Great news ! Well done - I bet it was a lot of hard work by you that made the
difference. Thanks for letting us know. Would you be willing to do
a write-up for the Samba News page ?

Thanks,

	Jeremy.