zfs discuss - Jun 2008 - CIFS HA service with solaris 10 and SC 3.2

Hello all,
 i would like to continue with this topic, and after doing some
"research" about the topic, i have some (many) doubts, and maybe we
could use this thread to give some responses to me and other users that can have
the same questions...
 First, sorry to "CC" to many forums, but i think is a relevant topic
to all of them, so...
 Second, would be nice to "clear" the understanding on some topics...
 1) What the difference between the smb server in solaris/opensolaris, and the
"new" project CIFS?
 2) I think samba.org has an implementation of CIFS protocol, to make a
unix-like operating system to be a SMB/CIFS server. Why don''t use that?
license problems? the smbserver that is already on solaris/opensolaris is not a
samba.org implementation?
 3) One of the goals to the CIFS Server project on OpenSolaris, is to support
OpenSolaris as a storage operating system... we can not do it with samba.org
implementation, or smbserver implementation that is already there?
 4) And the last one: ZFS has smb/cifs "share/on/off" capabilities,
what is the relation of "that" with "all of that"??
 5) Ok, there is another question... there is a new projetc (data migration
manager/dmm), that is intend to migrate NFS(GNU/Linux) services, and
CIFS(MS/Windows) services to Solaris/Opensolaris and ZFS. That project is on
storage community i think...but, how can we create a migration plan if we can
not handle the services yet? or can?
 Ok, i''m very confuse, but is not just my fault, i think is a little
complicated all this efforts "without" a glue, don''t you
agree?
 And in the top of all, is a need to have an agent to implement HA services on
it... i want implement a SMB/CIFS server on solaris/opensolaris, and
don''t know if we have the solution in ou community or not, and if there
is an agent to provide HA or we need to create a project to implement that...
 See, i need help.... :-)

 Ok, that''s all!

 Leal.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Samba cifs has been in opensolaris from day1.

No, it cannot be used to meet sun''s end goal which is cifs INTEGRATION
with the core kernel.  Sun cifs supports windows acl''s from the kernel
up.  Samba does not.




On 6/22/08, Marcelo Leal <opensolaris at posix.brte.com.br>
wrote:
> Hello all,
>  i would like to continue with this topic, and after doing some
"research"
> about the topic, i have some (many) doubts, and maybe we could use this
> thread to give some responses to me and other users that can have the same
> questions...
>  First, sorry to "CC" to many forums, but i think is a relevant
topic to all
> of them, so...
>  Second, would be nice to "clear" the understanding on some
topics...
>  1) What the difference between the smb server in solaris/opensolaris, and
> the "new" project CIFS?
>  2) I think samba.org has an implementation of CIFS protocol, to make a
> unix-like operating system to be a SMB/CIFS server. Why don''t use
that?
> license problems? the smbserver that is already on solaris/opensolaris is
> not a samba.org implementation?
>  3) One of the goals to the CIFS Server project on OpenSolaris, is to
> support OpenSolaris as a storage operating system... we can not do it with
> samba.org implementation, or smbserver implementation that is already
there?
>  4) And the last one: ZFS has smb/cifs "share/on/off"
capabilities, what is
> the relation of "that" with "all of that"??
>  5) Ok, there is another question... there is a new projetc (data migration
> manager/dmm), that is intend to migrate NFS(GNU/Linux) services, and
> CIFS(MS/Windows) services to Solaris/Opensolaris and ZFS. That project is
on
> storage community i think...but, how can we create a migration plan if we
> can not handle the services yet? or can?
>  Ok, i''m very confuse, but is not just my fault, i think is a
little
> complicated all this efforts "without" a glue, don''t you
agree?
>  And in the top of all, is a need to have an agent to implement HA services
> on it... i want implement a SMB/CIFS server on solaris/opensolaris, and
> don''t know if we have the solution in ou community or not, and if
there is
> an agent to provide HA or we need to create a project to implement that...
>  See, i need help.... :-)
>
>  Ok, that''s all!
>
>  Leal.
>
>
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>

Marcelo Leal <opensolaris at posix.brte.com.br>
writes:
> Hello all,
>
> [..]
> 
>  1) What the difference between the smb server in solaris/opensolaris,
>  and the "new" project CIFS?
What you refer to as the "smb server in solaris/opensolaris" is in
fact
Samba, which sits on top of a plain unix system. This has limitations in
the areas of user accounts and ACLs, among others. The new CIFS project
provides a CIFS server that''s integrated from the ground up, including
the filesystem itself.
>  2) I think samba.org has an implementation of CIFS protocol, to make
>  a unix-like operating system to be a SMB/CIFS server. Why don''t
use
>  that? license problems? the smbserver that is already on
>  solaris/opensolaris is not a samba.org implementation?
See above
>  3) One of the goals to the CIFS Server project on OpenSolaris, is to
>  support OpenSolaris as a storage operating system... we can not do it
>  with samba.org implementation, or smbserver implementation that is
>  already there?
See above
>  4) And the last one: ZFS has smb/cifs "share/on/off"
capabilities,
>  what is the relation of "that" with "all of that"??
Those properties are part of the administrative interface for the new
in-kernel CIFS server.
>  5) Ok, there is another question... there is a new projetc (data
>  migration manager/dmm), that is intend to migrate NFS(GNU/Linux)
>  services, and CIFS(MS/Windows) services to Solaris/Opensolaris and
>  ZFS. That project is on storage community i think...but, how can we
>  create a migration plan if we can not handle the services yet? or
>  can?
I''m not sure what you mean by "we can not handle the services
yet". As
mentioned above, OpenSolaris now has 2 separate ways to provide SMB/CIFS
services, and has had NFS support since... oh, about when Sun invented
NFS, I''d guess. :) And it''s way more solid than
Linux''s
>  Ok, i''m very confuse, but is not just my fault, i think is a
little
>  complicated all this efforts "without" a glue, don''t
you agree?
>  And in the top of all, is a need to have an agent to implement HA
>  services on it... i want implement a SMB/CIFS server on
>  solaris/opensolaris, and don''t know if we have the solution in ou
>  community or not, and if there is an agent to provide HA or we need
>  to create a project to implement that...
Have you seen this?
http://opensolaris.org/os/community/ha-clusters/ohac/

Thanks all for the answers!
 Seems like the solution to have a opensolaris storage solution is the CIFS
project. And there is no agent to provide HA, so seems like a good project too.

 Thanks,

 Leal.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Yeah, that''s something I''d love to see.  CIFS isn''t
quite there yet, but it''s miles ahead of Samba, and as soon as it is
ready we''ll want to be rolling it out under Sun Cluster.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Marcelo Leal wrote:
> Thanks all for the answers!
>  Seems like the solution to have a opensolaris storage solution is the CIFS
project. And there is no agent to provide HA, so seems like a good project too.
>
>   
Currently, the HA-NFS service requires that you disable the
sharenfs property.
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/820-2565/geaov?a=view

I''m not sure of the reasoning here, except that the NFS agent
monitor currently reads dfstab for configuration information.

ZFS offers a different approach. For the alias, Solaris Cluster
will know that for a HA-NFS implementation, there will be
some devices containing a file system which must be mounted
prior to starting the NFS service. This ballet is scheduled based
on the configuration of the cluster and its services including IP
addresses, storage affinity, etc.  With ZFS sharenfs, shareiscsi,
and scharesmb, some of the ballet steps are combined with
zpool import. IMHO, it would be worthwhile to investigate
how to leverage and adjust the NFS and Samba agents to
also understand how ZFS works and do the right thing.  Adding
iSCSI should be a trivial addition.  Might be a good project...
 -- richard

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008, Ross wrote:
> Yeah, that''s something I''d love to see.  CIFS
isn''t quite there yet,
> but it''s miles ahead of Samba, and as soon as it is ready
we''ll want
> to be rolling it out under Sun Cluster.
If Samba is already "there" for many people for many years, in what 
way is native CIFS miles ahead of Samba?  Does this apply to CIFS in 
general or just for HA?  This is not meant as a silly question since I 
would like to understand the benefits (beyond the native ACLs).

Bob
=====================================Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/

Samba''s integration with ZFS wasn''t that great last time I
tested.  I had all kinds of permission problems, mainly with inheritance. 
Windows deals with deny entries very differently to Unix and I kept finding my
test accounts were denied access to new files & folders.

Also, while I''m no Samba expert, from my own tests and from reading the
Samba manuals, my feeling is that Samba and the Solaris CIFS service have
different aims.  Samba seems to have the aim of making Unix / Linux files
available to windows clients, and there''s no denying it does that very
well.  However, nowhere have I seem them state that their aim is to be
indistinguishable from a windows server, whereas I do remember reading something
to that effect on a Sun blog about the CIFS service.
>From what I''ve seen, Samba applies standard Unix permissions to
files, and while that works to an extent, it''s simply not suitable as a
replacement for a windows server for anybody who actually uses NTFS permissions
extensively.
My hope is that Sun''s CIFS service will end up working more like the
services on EMC or NetApp NAS devices, allowing us to use it as a true
replacement for our windows file servers.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org