Samba (software)

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Samba
Developed by The Samba Team
Latest release 3.3.3 / 2009-4-1; 5 days ago
Preview release 4.0.0 alpha7 / 2009-2-26; 39 days ago
Operating system Multiplatform
Type Remote Access
License GNU General Public Licence
Website http://www.samba.org/

Samba is a free software re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, originally developed by Australian Andrew Tridgell. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain Controller (PDC) or as a domain member. It can also be part of an Active Directory domain.

Samba runs on most Unix and Unix-like systems, such as Linux, Solaris, AIX and the BSD variants, including Apple's Mac OS X Server (which was added to the Mac OS X client in version 10.2). Samba is standard on nearly all distributions of Linux and is commonly included as a basic system service on other Unix-based operating systems as well. Samba is released under the GNU General Public License. The name Samba comes from SMB (Server Message Block), the name of the standard protocol used by the Microsoft Windows network file system.

Contents

[edit] History

Andrew Tridgell developed the first version of Samba Unix in 1992, at the Australian National University, using a packet sniffer to do network analysis of the protocol used by DEC PATHWORKS server software. "nbserver 1.5" was released in December 1993. Tridgell later discovered that the protocol was largely identical to that used by other network server systems, including Microsoft's LAN Manager software. He decided to focus on Microsoft network compatibility after that.

Samba was originally called smbserver. The name was changed because of a trademark notice from the company "Syntax", who sold a product named TotalNet Advanced Server and owned the trademark for "SMBserver." The name "Samba" was derived by running the Unix command grep through the system dictionary looking for words that contained the letters S, M, and B in that order (i.e. grep -i '^s.*m.*b' /usr/share/dict/words).[1]

[edit] Features

Samba is an implementation of dozens of services and a dozen protocols, including NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NBT), SMB, CIFS (an enhanced version of SMB), DCE/RPC or more specifically, MSRPC, the Network Neighborhood suite of protocols, a WINS server also known as a NetBIOS Name Server (NBNS), the NT Domain suite of protocols which includes NT Domain Logons, Secure Accounts Manager (SAM) database, Local Security Authority (LSA) service, NT-style printing service (SPOOLSS), NTLM and more recently Active Directory Logon which involves a modified version of Kerberos and a modified version of LDAP. All these services and protocols are frequently incorrectly referred to as just NetBIOS or SMB. Samba can see and share printers.

Samba sets up network shares for chosen Unix directories (including all contained subdirectories). These appear to Microsoft Windows users as normal Windows folders accessible via the network. Unix users can either mount the shares directly as part of their file structure or, alternatively, can use a utility, smbclient (libsmb) installed with Samba to read the shares with a similar interface to a standard command line FTP program. Each directory can have different access privileges overlaid on top of the normal Unix file protections. For example: home directories would have read/write access for all known users, allowing each to access their own files. However they would still not have access to the files of others unless that permission would normally exist. Note that the netlogon share, typically distributed as a read only share from /etc/samba/netlogon, is the logon directory for user logon scripts.

Configuration is achieved by editing a single file (typically installed as /etc/smb.conf or /etc/samba/smb.conf). Samba can also provide user logon scripts and group policy implementation through poledit.

Samba includes a web administration tool called Samba Web Administration Tool (SWAT).[2][3][4]

[edit] Samba TNG

Samba TNG
Developed by Samba TNG team
Latest release 0.4.99 / 2005-09-14; 1300 days ago
Operating system Cross-platform
Type Microsoft networking
License GNU General Public License
Website http://www.samba-tng.org/

Samba TNG was forked in late 1999, after disagreements between the Samba Team leaders and Luke Leighton about the directions of the Samba project. They failed to come to an agreement on a development transition path which allowed the research version of Samba he was developing (known at the time as Samba-NTDOM) to slowly be integrated into Samba.[5]

Since the project started, development has been minimal due to a lack of developers. As such the Samba TNG team frequently recommends to people who are unsure of which program to use to try Samba instead, as they have more developers and are able to support more platforms and situations.[6]

One of the key goals of the Samba TNG project is to rewrite all of the NT Domains services as FreeDCE projects.[7] Making this rewriting goal difficult is the fact that services were all developed manually through network reverse-engineering, with limited or no reference to DCE/RPC documentation.[citation needed]

The key differences between the two programs are in the implementation of the NT Domains suite of protocols and MSRPC services. Samba makes all the NT Domains services available from a single place, whereas Samba TNG has separated each service into its own program.[citation needed]

ReactOS has started using Samba TNG services for its SMB implementation. The developers of both projects were interested in seeing the Samba TNG design used to help get ReactOS talking to Windows networks. They have been working together to adapt the network code and build system. The multi-layered and modular approach made it easy to port each service to ReactOS.[8]

[edit] See also

Free software portal

[edit] References

  1. ^ "A bit of history and a bit of fun". 1997-06-27. http://www.rxn.com/services/faq/smb/samba.history.txt. Retrieved on 2007-08-22. 
  2. ^ http://us3.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/SWAT.html
  3. ^ http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1035709.html
  4. ^ http://www.linux.com/feature/125452
  5. ^ "Project FAQ - What is the relationship between Samba and Samba TNG?". http://wiki.samba-tng.org/doku.php/pages/faq#what_is_the_relationship_between_samba_and_samba-tng. Retrieved on 2008-02-19. 
  6. ^ "Project FAQ - Which should I use - Samba or Samba TNG?". http://wiki.samba-tng.org/doku.php/pages/faq#which_should_i_use_-_samba_or_samba-tng. Retrieved on 2008-02-19. 
  7. ^ "Project FAQ - What's all this about FreeDCE?". http://wiki.samba-tng.org/doku.php/pages/faq#what_s_all_this_about_freedce. Retrieved on 2008-02-19. 
  8. ^ Vincent, Brian. "Interview with Steven Edwards". Wine HQ. http://www.winehq.org/?interview=14. Retrieved on 2008-02-19. 

[edit] External links

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