[Samba] Concerns about Samba4

Adam Tauno Williams
2007-03-13T10:53:16Z

> I attended the Samba conference at the FOSDEM yesterday. Jeremy Allison was
> great, and explained very clearly the problems faced by implementing an
> Active Directory controller.
> The CIFS protocol is required in heterogenous environments. Jeremy made it
> pretty clear that even in pure Unix environments, CIFS is quite superior to
> NFSv4. Samba is thus a required component of pretty much any network, even
> when using Unix workstations and servers only.
> Implementing a Samba Active Directory domain controller requires more
> components than for an NT4 domain controller. Samba will have to integrate
an
> LDAP server, a Kerberos server, a DNS server and a DHCP server. It will
have
> to implement remote registry access and many Windows-related DCE/RPC calls.
> Those don't make much sense in Unix-only environments. Moreover, the
LDAP
> directory schema will have to match the Microsoft AD schema, which is badly
> documented to say the least.
> I'm concerned about all the unneeded features that will be introduced
by
> Samba4 in pure Unix environments, as well as by the implications that
Samba4
> will have on other services. The LDAP directory will have to implement the
> Microsoft AD schema, which is not compatible with any current Unix
> application. How will Samba4 interoperate with groupware softwares for
> instance ? Has anyone thought about how to mix Unix LDAP-aware applications
> with Samba4 ? Aren't we pushing bloated, buggy and badly thought
> Microsoft "standards" to the Unix platform in the name of
interoperability
> without thinking about the consequences this will have on other services
and
> on the overall stability ?
> Thanks in advance to all of those who will prove me wrong and let me sleep
> peacefully again :-)