samba - May 2018 - Q: Samba4 AD DC & small office file sharing

On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 02:47:24PM +0100, Rowland Penny via samba
wrote:
> On Sat, 26 May 2018 09:21:01 -0400
> Marco Shmerykowsky via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > In lieu of virtualization, I wouldn't be opposed to some
> > small, inexpensive appliance type device (sort of like
> > the Netgate firewalls that run pfsense).
> > 
> > I came across the MintBox Mini Pro
> > (http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/mintbox/mintbox-mini-pro/)
> > 
> > Any experience or alternate suggestions?
> > 
> 
> Yes, just about any 64bit computer on the planet.
> 
> I know the wikipage says it isn't recommended to use a DC as
> fileserver, but I have never understood why. Every DC is used as a
> fileserver, what do you think 'sysvol' & 'netlogon' are
? Yes, they
> are shares serving files aka 'fileserver', anybody want to argue
this ?
No, it's certainly being a fileserver there. The key here
is 'recommended' :-). Doing a DC + fileserver on a box just
uses more resources that could be more productively :-) :-)
used in just serving files (Jeremy, who loves the file serving
part of Samba, the DC part less so :-) :-).

On Tue, 29 May 2018 09:18:49 -0700
Jeremy Allison <jra at samba.org> wrote:
> On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 02:47:24PM +0100, Rowland Penny via samba
> wrote:
> > On Sat, 26 May 2018 09:21:01 -0400
> > Marco Shmerykowsky via samba <samba at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > In lieu of virtualization, I wouldn't be opposed to some
> > > small, inexpensive appliance type device (sort of like
> > > the Netgate firewalls that run pfsense).
> > > 
> > > I came across the MintBox Mini Pro
> > > (http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/mintbox/mintbox-mini-pro/)
> > > 
> > > Any experience or alternate suggestions?
> > > 
> > 
> > Yes, just about any 64bit computer on the planet.
> > 
> > I know the wikipage says it isn't recommended to use a DC as
> > fileserver, but I have never understood why. Every DC is used as a
> > fileserver, what do you think 'sysvol' &
'netlogon' are ? Yes, they
> > are shares serving files aka 'fileserver', anybody want to
argue
> > this ?
> 
> No, it's certainly being a fileserver there. The key here
> is 'recommended' :-). Doing a DC + fileserver on a box just
> uses more resources that could be more productively :-) :-)
> used in just serving files (Jeremy, who loves the file serving
> part of Samba, the DC part less so :-) :-).
I am not saying that using a DC as a fileserver in a very large
organization is a good idea, but in a small office, it is more than
capable. Lets not forget where all the authentication is carried out,
it is on the DC, so if you only have a few computers and users, then it
is possible to use the DC as a fileserver. If everything starts slowing
down, then it would be time to add a separate fileserver.
Stop me if I am wrong, but didn't a certain company produce something
called an SBS ??

Rowland

On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 05:54:49PM +0100, Rowland Penny via samba
wrote:
> On Tue, 29 May 2018 09:18:49 -0700
> Jeremy Allison <jra at samba.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 02:47:24PM +0100, Rowland Penny via samba
> > wrote:
> > > On Sat, 26 May 2018 09:21:01 -0400
> > > Marco Shmerykowsky via samba <samba at lists.samba.org>
wrote:
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > In lieu of virtualization, I wouldn't be opposed to some
> > > > small, inexpensive appliance type device (sort of like
> > > > the Netgate firewalls that run pfsense).
> > > > 
> > > > I came across the MintBox Mini Pro
> > > >
(http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/mintbox/mintbox-mini-pro/)
> > > > 
> > > > Any experience or alternate suggestions?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Yes, just about any 64bit computer on the planet.
> > > 
> > > I know the wikipage says it isn't recommended to use a DC as
> > > fileserver, but I have never understood why. Every DC is used as
a
> > > fileserver, what do you think 'sysvol' &
'netlogon' are ? Yes, they
> > > are shares serving files aka 'fileserver', anybody want
to argue
> > > this ?
> > 
> > No, it's certainly being a fileserver there. The key here
> > is 'recommended' :-). Doing a DC + fileserver on a box just
> > uses more resources that could be more productively :-) :-)
> > used in just serving files (Jeremy, who loves the file serving
> > part of Samba, the DC part less so :-) :-).
> 
> I am not saying that using a DC as a fileserver in a very large
> organization is a good idea, but in a small office, it is more than
> capable. Lets not forget where all the authentication is carried out,
> it is on the DC, so if you only have a few computers and users, then it
> is possible to use the DC as a fileserver. If everything starts slowing
> down, then it would be time to add a separate fileserver.
> Stop me if I am wrong, but didn't a certain company produce something
> called an SBS ??
Yeah you're right. The main thing to do I think is set expectations
appropriately. e.g. for a so-and-so spec'ed machine, you can expect
x authentications per/second and y IO operations per second simultaneously.

Problem is, I have no idea what x and y are :-).

> 
> Yeah you're right. The main thing to do I think is set expectations
> appropriately. e.g. for a so-and-so spec'ed machine, you can expect
> x authentications per/second and y IO operations per second 
> simultaneously.
> 
> Problem is, I have no idea what x and y are :-).
> 
> -- 
Yes ,Jeremy, io is the thing people should think about most and forget about. 

Im almost done with my setup for a ms SBS clone but debian based.. 
Since Rowland mentions a `companies SBS` ..  ;-) 
And as it says a sbs clone and it supports almost the same. 

This setup will be debian buster based. 
Depending on hardware you can setup on 1 server or a per service, server
assigned.

The one server, as far i could test, should handle easy up to 50 users. 
A recent CPU (min 4 cores)2+Ghz, 8-16 GB ram, (2x SDD OS + databases raid1) +
(2x SATA raid1 regular data) and just software raid1 what tested.
This is, i think bit the minimal needed if you run the full setup. 
Split up its much less. What was running, Debian, samba, kopano, postfix, squid,
apache, mariadb, ntp.

This is why i always advice the following. 

When you buy a new server, where to spend your money on. 
1) get the fasted harddisk you can get, preffered in raid. 
   I dont use Raid 5 because its much easy to recover with raid 1. 
2) get ram, more is better. 
3) cpu, the one i dont care about....  Any recent is ok. 2Gz+.
This depends a bit on what your going to use. 

Your harddisk is ALWAYS the slowst part of the computer.. Always. 
So the faster your harddisk the faster your server gets. 

Just my thoughts shared.. 

In responce to Rowland. 
>Lets be honest here, if you are in a small office and the computer you
>are planning to install Samba as a DC on, is capable of also running
>some form of VM with a fileserver in it, then it is also probably
>capable of just running the DC as a fileserver. Less to setup and
>maintain.
>
>Rowland

No, imo, a bit wrong thinking here, this all depends on the amount of users and
how samba is used.
A one server setup as DC + file server is more risk, more stress... 
What often happens is that due to that, its less maintained, which make any next
update harder..
Just because people are more scared to upgrade.

Why do you think i have 15+ servers running, and most only do 1 thing. 
Being file server or proxy of sql, antispam, mail, ... server etc. 

But again my thoughts here.. 


Greetz, 

Louis