samba - Jul 2006 - Suse 10.1 with samba servers 3.0.22 & 3.0.23rc3 only seen by Suse 10.1 samba client as cifs

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I have a Suse Linux 10.1 X86_64 server that is destined to work with a
mixed bag of OS/2, Windows and Linux clients. For this reason, I have
again chosen to use the SMB protocol, which mandates the use of samba. I
started with samba 3.0.22, but ran into some glitches so migrated to
3.0.23rc3.

My Linux client is running Suse 10.1 X86_32 with samba client 3.0.22.

I have an OS/2 test system and a Windows 2000 test system.

The Windows 2000 system, with limited testing, has worked well with the
new samba server.

The OS/2 (Warp 4.52) system also seems to be working well with samba
3.0.23rc3, again with limited testing. (A qualified yippee)

I had one H___ of a time getting the Linux client to recognize the samba
shares. I could mount them, but they were unbrowseable. Attempting to
enter a mounted directory would almost freeze the system. After much
tinkering the samba settings via SWAT I was still nowhere.

Just for a lark, I tried mounting the shares as cifs. BINGO, everything
worked. However, this left me in a total state of confusion.

Reprise:
1) The Linux samba 3.0.22 client can log onto my old server (Linux with
samba 2) just fine, as well as the shared directories from my Win2k box,
so obviously it can recognize SMB shares.

2) The OS/2 system, which as far as I know, hasn't got a clue what cifs
is, can mount, and browse, shares from the new server.

3) The Win2K box can mount, and browse, shares from the new server.

4) The new Linux samba client fails to recognize file system of the
shares as SMB, even though the shares can be mounted. But, if I mount
them as cifs instead of smbfs they are usable.

Questions:
Has there been some kind of hidden parameter relatively recently added
to samba 3 that identifies shares as cifs or smbfs? Is the Linux client
programmed to react to this? Are these protocols becoming mutually
exclusive? If any of this is true, where is the documentation? Why me?


This has given me a headache!
Tom Garson
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Thomas Garson wrote:
> Has there been some kind of hidden parameter relatively recently added
> to samba 3 that identifies shares as cifs or smbfs? Is the Linux client
> programmed to react to this? Are these protocols becoming mutually
> exclusive? If any of this is true, where is the documentation? Why me?
May I suggest some reading on SMB vs. CIFS?

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIFS

On the Linux side, "cifs" is the suggested replacement for the
deprecated "smbfs" kernel module.


-TL

Thomas Garson wrote:
> Questions:
> Has there been some kind of hidden parameter relatively recently added
> to samba 3 that identifies shares as cifs or smbfs? Is the Linux client
> programmed to react to this? Are these protocols becoming mutually
> exclusive? If any of this is true, where is the documentation? Why me?
smbfs has been replaced in the linux kernel by cifs, so smbfs is no longer
being kept up to date. cifs is now a mount option in newer releases.

cifs is "Common Internet File System".  It's based on the SMB
protocol.
Hasn't been a secret.  Didn't make the front page of the NY Times
though.

http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/manpages-3/mount.cifs.8.html

Regards, Doug

On Tue, Jul 04, 2006 at 10:27:15PM -0700, Thomas Garson
wrote:
> 
> 4) The new Linux samba client fails to recognize file system of the
> shares as SMB, even though the shares can be mounted. But, if I mount
> them as cifs instead of smbfs they are usable.
> 
> Questions:
> Has there been some kind of hidden parameter relatively recently added
> to samba 3 that identifies shares as cifs or smbfs? Is the Linux client
> programmed to react to this? Are these protocols becoming mutually
> exclusive? If any of this is true, where is the documentation? Why me?
> 
> This has given me a headache!
Sorry for the headache. You really shouldn't use smbfs anymore. It's
essentially unsupported. You got bitten by Microsoft marketing, there's
no difference between smb and cifs. Cifs is just a renaming (re-branding?)
of smb. They're the same thing. Just always use cifsfs on linux.

Jeremy.