[PLUG] Comparing files

[chris (fool) mccraw]

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 07:54, Michael Ewan <mhewan1 at comcast.net> wrote:
> On 11/10/2010 6:12 AM, Daniel.Roberts at sanofi-aventis.com wrote:
>> Thanks for all the advice!
>> How can I go about figuring out perhaps if I could mount these windoze fileshares onto my linux system..
>> I am not very familiar with samba and all..
>> Thanks!
>> Dan
>>
>
> You definitely want to put SFU (Services for UNIX) on the Windoze boxes
> and provide NFS file shares back to Linux. If at all possible, upgrade
> your Windows machines to Server 2008.

out of curiosity, how well did that stuff work on earlier windows?
does it work on non-server machines (say, xp pro and vista ultimate)?
i'm conslutting in a mixed environment where that's what's available,
so the question isn't quite idle.


> We have experimented with SFU and
> found the NFS performance to be quite good.  The alternative is samba
> client on the Linux box, which is a pain.

i find typing 'aptitude install samba-client' (or similar) and
'smbmount \\\\192.168.1.20\\sharename /mnt -o user=username' to be
easier than doing anything to/with windows...i also know that my unix
tools work fine on those file shares (and it sounds like they would on
the SFU NFS export too).  while i agree that the crazy number of
backslashes aren't intuitive, well, the OP knows about them by this
example so now it's known & easy anyhow.

also, how good is the performance?  i have a machine that can serve
over 1000mbit via ftp or nfs (using jumbo frames on a channel-bonded
4x1000mbit nic).  samba on the same machine serves at significantly
slower rates, peaking around 300mbit.  (tested from a linux client.
performance not quite as good to/from a windows client).  so i am not
trying to argue that samba works better on the network--i'm curious to
hear some numbers on similar hardware (no way to test windows on this
box, not with the raid arrays formatted xfs).


> Rule of thumb, in a
> heterogeneous environment, provide the native protocols that the client
> machine supports.

my rule of thumb is "don't do anything with windows you can more
easily do with linux" =)  but easy is all in the eye of the beholder.