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Re: Samba or NFS



On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 11:08 AM, Dan <ganchya@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have two linux servers. One file server (debian) that is running
> samba and one application server (redhat). I would like to mount the
> shares of the file server in the application server. The problem is
> that the usernames are very different. Samba is already running and
> easier to set-up. NFS seems to be more difficult to set-up and also
> there are more security issues.
>
> Which are the advantages of NFS over Samba (cifs) other than the
> symbolic links. I read that even some people prefer samba over NFS to
> connect Unix to Unix.
>
> Thanks,
> Dan

CIFS clients mishandle mixed case filenames, such as 'file.txt",
"FILE.txt", and "FILE.TXT". They also have a massively different idea
of how file ownership and privileges work than the POSIX standards
built into most UNIX and Linux native filesystems. And while I very
much applaud the work of the Samba team for providing this
cross-compatibility tool, it performs like a *dog* compared to NFS,
AFS, ZFS, or the other more powerful network based fileysstems.

NFS needs some attention to security: so does CIFS. But most of the
complexities CIFS does more trivilally, such as mixed group ownership,
can be resolved with tools built into NFS such as "netgroups" suport.
And holy moley, but the speed of simple network operations like
Subversion checkouts is *grotesquely* faster under NFS.


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