Is there any reason to believe that a samba server would be slower when serving up roaming profiles than a real Windows server? I know roaming profiles are slow by nature and that there are things you can do to help like configuring ffolder redirection. But all else being equal, how would a samba server compare to a Windows server when it comes to speed specifically with respect to roaming profiles? Our Windows guy insists samba is slow but I don't believe it. He claims that when you load a roamng profile, Windows downloads only files that have changed and samba downloads everything. But he doesn't know anything about samba and I don't know where he got that from.
On Thu, 28 Jun 2012, Todor Fassl wrote:> Is there any reason to believe that a samba server would be slower when > serving up roaming profiles than a real Windows server?In my experience, Samba is much faster than Windows on comparable hardware. From 3 to 5 times faster, depending on function.> Our Windows guy insists samba is slow but I don't believe it. He claims that > when you load a roamng profile, Windows downloads only files that have > changed and samba downloads everything. But he doesn't know anything about > samba and I don't know where he got that from.Indeed he doesn't know anything about Samba; he's wrong. Steve
On Jun 28, 2012, at 7:02 AM, Todor Fassl wrote:> Is there any reason to believe that a samba server would be slower when serving up roaming profiles than a real Windows server? I know roaming profiles are slow by nature and that there are things you can do to help like configuring ffolder redirection. But all else being equal, how would a samba server compare to a Windows server when it comes to speed specifically with respect to roaming profiles? > > Our Windows guy insists samba is slow but I don't believe it. He claims that when you load a roamng profile, Windows downloads only files that have changed and samba downloads everything. But he doesn't know anything about samba and I don't know where he got that from.True "roaming profiles" upload and download the entire profile at every logon, logoff. Doesn't matter what server is on the other end. If folder redirectoin is not implemented the profile grows over time and this copying of the entire profile will slow down logons over time -- whether you're using a Windows server or a Samba server. If one sets GroupPolicy to only create local profiles for domain users it's possible that the local Windows box will do an rsync-ish "changes only", though I've not tested this. It's also possible to implement local profiles with folder redirection and no "roaming" component which will never copy the NTUSER.DAT and other files at logon/logoff. It's important to remember that the server is not doing any of the roaming profile work other than informing the client of the user's profile folder location (though in the case of Active Directory -- delivering additional GroupPolicy behaviors). The client's copy of Windows is doing the roaming work and it's behavior is determined by local Group Policy settings. The only way to really control the amount of data going up and down for true roaming profiles is implementing folder redirection where at least the AppData folder is redirected to a location on the server outside of the roaming profile store -- typically to a folder in the user's home directory. The Samba HowTo has some very good basic info on how to implement folder redirection. Works with Windows XP and Windows 7. You can also search this list for folder redirection using Samba and Windows 7. http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/ProfileMgmt.html
> is it possible that unix file timestamps having a greater precision > than ntfs is causing windows to see a "change"? I know rsync has an > option to combat this.-- Well, I have no reason to believe that our Windows guy is correct and that Windows downloads only changed files and samba downloads the whole profile. I'm guessing he is basing that on how slow logins are. I can guarantee that he hasn't actually checked it out. He either thought it up himself or he heard it somewhere. Does anyone know if Windows does download only files that have changed? Something just occured to me... Well, maybe this is a bug in samba but probably not. When you join a machine to a domain where a time server is configured, it doesn't automatically configure the time servers on the client machine. On our network, the file server is the PDC. We have redundant BDCs which are configured as time servers in samba and are also ntp servers for the linux machines. If I boot a linux machine, I can use "ntpq -p" to make sure that the machine is getting data from our ntp servers. But if I go into the Windows control panel and look at "Date and Time", the server listed there is time.windows.com. [Which, as it occurs to me, is also bogus in that what the heck is windows.com? If its Microsoft, why isn't the default time server time.microsoft.com?] Anyway, it seems to me that if you join a machine to a domain with a time server configured, it should show up in "Date and Time" -> Internet Time -> Server. But our BDCs aren't even listed there. Gawd, I hate Windows. I don't hate Microsoft or Bill Gates. He seems like a nice enough guy to me. And I don't blame him for getting to be a bzillionaire even though his software kinda sucks. But, still, I hate Windows.
From: "Cain, Marc" <Marc.Cain at seattlecolleges.edu> e user's profile folder location (though in the case of Active Directory -- delivering additional GroupPolicy behaviors). The client's copy of Windows is doing the roaming work and it's behavior is determined by local Group Policy settings. Oh, that's a really good point. Even if the Windows client is doing some kind of rsync-like download, it would be initiated by the client, not the server. The client is *downloading* the files. The server isn't pushing them out, "Here, take all these files whether you like it or not." The list of files to download would be calculated on the client. I suppose you could argue that if the Windows server supports an rsync-like protocol and samba does not, it would make sense. But I don't think something like that could get past the samba developers.> The only way to really control the amount of data going up and down for > true roaming profiles is implementing folder redirection [...]Right. I mentioned that in my original message. That's the point. I am pushing the idea that our problem is not using folder redirection and the Windows guy is pushing the idea that its samba itself. So the boss is like, "Lets just dump samba and roaming profiles, etc. Its all this work just to have files backed up. Lets just give everybody a local profile and if they lose everything in their My Documents folder, too bad." ]Sorry, I didn't relize this list was set to reply to sender. Mark, you are going to get 2 copies of this message.]
"That's the point. I am pushing the idea that our problem is not using folder redirection and the Windows guy is pushing the idea that its samba itself." Spot-on. Your windows guy just needs to implement a few AD registry tweaks (see below etc) to get things working sweetly, and folder redirection (to MS-Server or samba/linux) is considered to be best-practice in every microsoft house I've ever come across. No-one uses roaming profiles without it, unless all their workstations are wired with 10GB ethernet to the most over-spec'd server I've ever seen, or their users don't actually roam more than once every six months... On 28 June 2012 20:09, Ben Metcalfe <bwmetcalfe at gmail.com> wrote:> Here's a decent summary of roaming profiles on the latest windows > iterations. > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848267 > > "Branche cache" may also be relevant: > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831696 > > WIthout the original windows admin here to query its difficult to be sure, > but he might well have been talking about having "offline files" enabled on > redirected folders attached to roaming profiles, which will display an > rsync-like behaviour when reconnected. > "Offline files" works on my illumos-based ZFS/samba NAS (the last time I > checked) indistinguishably from the way it does against microsoft smb > shares though, so I can't see any reason why it shouldn't work on linux > samba... or maybe I'm not testing it rigourously. > > > http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/springboard/archive/2010/04/19/understanding-user-state-virtualization-improvements-in-windows-7.aspx > > Here's an old (but still applicable?) HOWTO for enabling Vista's specific > "offline files" efficiently against samba/linux: > > http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2007/03/16/using-offline-files-with-samba-emc-servers-nas-devices.aspx > YMMV on Windows 7 and 8. > > > On 28 June 2012 16:26, Chris Weiss <cweiss at gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Dave Ewart <davee at ceu.ox.ac.uk> wrote: >> > On Thursday, 28.06.2012 at 11:07 -0400, Steve Thompson wrote: >> > >> >> On Thu, 28 Jun 2012, Todor Fassl wrote: >> >> >Our Windows guy insists samba is slow but I don't believe it. He >> >> >claims that when you load a roamng profile, Windows downloads only >> >> >files that have changed and samba downloads everything. But he >> >> >doesn't know anything about samba and I don't know where he got that >> >> >from. >> > >> > However native speed won't be important if, under Samba, a full roaming >> > profile is downloaded on each login whereas under Windows an rsync-like >> > action takes place to only download minimal changes. I don't know >> > whether that's the case or not, whether it's configurable behaviour >> > under either Samba or Windows Server, but it's certainly an interesting >> > point. >> >> is it possible that unix file timestamps having a greater precision >> than ntfs is causing windows to see a "change"? I know rsync has an >> option to combat this. >> -- >> To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the >> instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba >> > >