samba - Oct 2008 - Questions about Samba 3.x on AIX 4.3.3

Hello,

I realize that AIX 4.3.3 is a very old platform, but we have one such system
which cannot be upgraded and requires Samba. We are currently using Samba
2.2.1a (!) and I'd like to upgrade to something more modern. 

This system participates in a Clearcase environment and we are trying to
share an MVFS filesystem. Users complain that it takes a very long time (5+
minutes) to access this share, or that the access times out. I found a
mailing list post describing a similar problem on Linux from 2004 here:

http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/2004-July/089889.html

It doesn't look like Rational released a fix for this issue for the latest
supported version of Clearcase on AIX 4.3.3. It does look like the Samba
workaround appears in Samba 3.0.6. This is a newer version than the most
recent binary package I am able to find for AIX 4.3.3, which is Samba 3.0.4.

So I'm trying to compile the latest 3.0 and 3.2 versions without much
success. I can't compile using the IBM compiler we have because it
doesn't
support C99 correctly and configure fails. Compiling smbd/ with gcc 2.95.2
or 3.3.4 succeeds, but the associated linker doesn't understand the
-bexpfull or -bbigtoc targets and linking fails. If I comment these targets
out in the Makefile, linking succeeds. 

I'm hoping someone could answer at least one of the following questions:

1. I don't understand the purpose of expfull or bigtoc. If I can
compile/link without -bexpfull and -bbigtoc, will the resulting binaries be
safe to use?
2. If it's not safe, what is the latest release of Samba that can be built
without having a C99-compliant compiler?
3. What is the latest 'known buildable' version of Samba for AIX 4.3.3,
and
what build tools are required for success?


Thanks,

-Will

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <William.Saxon@sage.com>
Newsgroups: linux.samba
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 1:10 PM
Subject: [Samba] Questions about Samba 3.x on AIX 4.3.3

> Hello,
>
> I realize that AIX 4.3.3 is a very old platform, but we have one such 
> system
> which cannot be upgraded and requires Samba. We are currently using Samba
> 2.2.1a (!) and I'd like to upgrade to something more modern.
>
> This system participates in a Clearcase environment and we are trying to
> share an MVFS filesystem. Users complain that it takes a very long time 
> (5+
> minutes) to access this share, or that the access times out. I found a
> mailing list post describing a similar problem on Linux from 2004 here:
>
> http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/2004-July/089889.html
>
> It doesn't look like Rational released a fix for this issue for the
latest
> supported version of Clearcase on AIX 4.3.3. It does look like the Samba
> workaround appears in Samba 3.0.6. This is a newer version than the most
> recent binary package I am able to find for AIX 4.3.3, which is Samba 
> 3.0.4.
>
> So I'm trying to compile the latest 3.0 and 3.2 versions without much
> success. I can't compile using the IBM compiler we have because it
doesn't
> support C99 correctly and configure fails. Compiling smbd/ with gcc 2.95.2
> or 3.3.4 succeeds, but the associated linker doesn't understand the
> -bexpfull or -bbigtoc targets and linking fails. If I comment these 
> targets
> out in the Makefile, linking succeeds.
>
> I'm hoping someone could answer at least one of the following
questions:
>
> 1. I don't understand the purpose of expfull or bigtoc. If I can
> compile/link without -bexpfull and -bbigtoc, will the resulting binaries 
> be
> safe to use?
> 2. If it's not safe, what is the latest release of Samba that can be
built
> without having a C99-compliant compiler?
> 3. What is the latest 'known buildable' version of Samba for AIX
4.3.3,
> and
> what build tools are required for success?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Will

Will,

I know this is silly; but, have you tried compiling samba-3.0.6 from here ?
http://us1.samba.org/samba/ftp/old-versions/
>From what I can find now, 3.0.12pre1 didn't compile on AIX 4.3.3 so
I'm
making a good guess any version less than this may work well.
I found may people with problems with AIX 4.3.3 and compiling various 
versions but didn't see any solutions.

James

> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Kosin [mailto:james_kosin@cox.net] 
> Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 11:12 PM
> To: William.Saxon@sage.com
> Cc: samba@lists.samba.org
> Subject: Re: [Samba] Questions about Samba 3.x on AIX 4.3.3
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <William.Saxon@sage.com>
> Newsgroups: linux.samba
> Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 1:10 PM
> Subject: [Samba] Questions about Samba 3.x on AIX 4.3.3
>
> > I'm hoping someone could answer at least one of the 
> following questions:
> >
> > 1. I don't understand the purpose of expfull or bigtoc. If I can
> > compile/link without -bexpfull and -bbigtoc, will the 
> resulting binaries 
> > be
> > safe to use?
> > 2. If it's not safe, what is the latest release of Samba 
> that can be built
> > without having a C99-compliant compiler?
> > 3. What is the latest 'known buildable' version of Samba 
> for AIX 4.3.3, 
> > and
> > what build tools are required for success?
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > -Will
> 
> 
> Will,
> 
> I know this is silly; but, have you tried compiling 
> samba-3.0.6 from here ?
> http://us1.samba.org/samba/ftp/old-versions/
> 
> From what I can find now, 3.0.12pre1 didn't compile on AIX 
> 4.3.3 so I'm 
> making a good guess any version less than this may work well.
> I found may people with problems with AIX 4.3.3 and compiling various 
> versions but didn't see any solutions.
>
James,

I did get that just in case that was the best I could do. I figure I could
also try to backport the fsusage.c changes from 3.0.6 since they were minor.

I have learned 2 things since I posted - one, if I disable winbind, ldap,
ads, cups and readline + comment out the bexpfull and bbigtoc flags, I can
build/install 3.0.32 without issue. I haven't tested it yet, but it may
work. I also learned that the gnu ld on AIX is just a bad idea, and that it
may be possible to tell gcc to use the IBM/AIX ld instead. I may try that
later.

Thanks for your reply.

-Will